


The Moon Thesis

by Babblefest, ConstantCommentTea



Series: Blood and Time [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angel Goes to the Moon, Evil Weather, Gen, Grad Students Need to Slow Down and Chill the Fuck Out, Hitting Someone and Hitting It Off Are Definitely the Same Thing, Is That...A Plot?, Lasers, Not Actually Lasers but Angel Can’t Be Expected to Differentiate Between Space Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babblefest/pseuds/Babblefest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantCommentTea/pseuds/ConstantCommentTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel tries to grapple with the concept of regeneration in the form of the tenth Doctor, and the Doctor tries to stop Angel from solving all of his problems with violence. You know, because stressed out fish-alien grad students on the moon who are about to wipe out half the human population with their thesis *doesn't* call for violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, there! So this story is a direct sequel to _Room in the Middle_. You don't need to read _Room in the Middle_ to understand this story's plot; however, we do recommend it for continuity's sake. Oh, go on, it's short. It's like, one scene.
> 
> If you insist, though, here is a synopsis of what you should know:
> 
> 1\. Angel was sent back in time by the Weeping Angels and rescued by the Ninth Doctor.
> 
> 2\. They didn't hit it off right away, but on their way back to Angel's time, they found some unexpected commonality.
> 
> 3\. The Doctor gave Angel his sonic screwdriver as part of a plan to divert the Weeping Angels away from their original victim.
> 
> 4\. We end with Angel holding the screwdriver in a churchyard. The Weeping Angels are gone, as is the Ninth Doctor, and around the corner barrels the Tenth Doctor.
> 
> 5\. Angel does not know about regenerations.
> 
> Final canon timelines notes: For the Doctor and Martha, this is sometime after _Blink_. For Angel  & Co., this is sometime after _Disharmony_ but before they go to Pylea.
> 
> Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy it!

The Doctor took the turn sharply and at full tilt. Hitting a patch of gravel, his foot slid in spite of the rubber soles of his shoes (he had thought this pair was getting a bit old. Perhaps it was time to switch. Maybe to blue or green) and gravity, which had never been kind to him - even before he fell off of that tower - wrapped her arms around him and dragged him towards the pavement. The thousands of timelines that had stretched out in front of him a few seconds ago dropped down to three.

He could extend his right hand to catch himself. His right hand was holding his sonic screwdriver that had not been working quite properly after the explosion that he had been a bit too close to 21 minutes ago. The sonic screwdriver would not survive the crash into the pavement.

He could spare the sonic in his right hand and favor the left hand, which was holding the partially constructed short range particle transmission unit. The teleport was even less likely to survive the fall than the sonic. The alien technology had already been through one explosion and parts of it kept trying to fall off. It didn’t help that most of the parts that were going to make it work had been scavenged from the dumpster behind a Radio Shack and didn’t really fit properly.

He could land on his face. It wasn’t a good option. He liked his face.

The Doctor made a decision and the swirling potential of time snapped into the unalterable present with a nasty crunch.

That was the third sonic screwdriver this month. He really needed to be more careful. Or carry spares.

Moments after he hit the ground, the Doctor was on his feet again and working his way back up to speed. Rounding another corner onto a busier street just as the streetlights were coming on, the Doctor gave the teleportation device a quick once over and decided that it had received minimal damage from his fall, but was going to remain a useless pile of junk without his sonic screwdriver. Perhaps he should have gone with the left hand; America _did_ seem to be covered in electronic shops.

Things like this didn’t happen when there was someone running next to him to carry things or tell him to slow down. For a moment he wondered where exactly Martha had got to, only to remember that she’d been teleported away. Thus the need to build his own transport to get up to the ship on the moon and collect her. The Doctor ducked around a crowd of teenagers and into a flower shop. He pulled the door shut behind him, tried (and failed) to lock it with his broken sonic screwdriver, and then dove behind a display a geraniums to watch for his pursuers. The Bloflosu probably wouldn’t want to blow their cover by running down a street full of humans without some sort of costume. The sort of costume that they’d have to go back to their ship to get since the ones they had been using previously had been caught in an explosion. The Doctor grinned to himself. That alone would give him an extra twenty minutes, maybe more.

Twenty minutes of free time to think of how to get onto the spaceship currently parked on the far side of the moon. The Doctor took a brief mental inventory of his current assets: a half-assembled teleportation device, a broken screwdriver, a wind-up mouse, a stethoscope, psychic paper, a banana, geraniums (they definitely counted, as they were right in front of him) - the Doctor dug his free hand around in his pocket, searching as for ideas as much as supplies - paperclips, a yo-yo, bubbles, spare toaster pieces (oh dear, Sarah Jane was going to be mad about that), catnip...

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair in frustration and glanced around the room. He added “more flowers” and “grumpy looking shopkeeper” to the list of assets and then decided that the shopkeeper did not look particularly helpful and crossed her off the list again.

He was adding his own limbs to the list while being shooed out of the shop into the now dark street when he felt the change. Time shifted. Shifted just a little but with a foreboding nature, like watching the first tiny rock fall that starts an avalanche. There was a sense of being pushed away from and pulled toward something at the same time. The left side of his stomach felt just a tiny bit queasy.

The feeling was not altogether unfamiliar, it always felt a bit like this when he ran over his own time stream, but it still put him on edge. Lessons from long, long ago still echoed in the back of his mind: the recitation of the Laws of Time, their reasons, and the consequences of breaking them.

The First Law of Time forbid meeting oneself past or future. Just being too close caused time to weaken and flex. Paradoxes became easy very quickly. The penalty, long ago when there were people to enforce it, had been a forced regeneration.

He had always imagined that it was actually not the First Law of Time because it was more dangerous to break it than all of the other laws. Indeed, it was possible for nothing worse to come of it than getting to know yourself a bit better (not a pleasant experience usually, but survivable). No, it was because it was just so very tempting.

The Doctor took off running down the street again. He didn’t actually have to talk to the other him, but it would be good to know if both of him were in the same time and space for a reason. It wouldn’t hurt to have a look.

He did not wonder (not one bit) if the death of the Time Lords meant that he could or should stop rebelling against them.

Following time was like following a smell. Correct paths, more often than not, had to be found by process of elimination. The Doctor slowed to a walk near a park where time eddied lazily around the swing sets and monkey bars. Extra wibbly, he mused. That was it. Important things happened on playgrounds. Little, important things. Things that could change the entire flow of a life.

The Doctor picked his way towards the opposite end of the park. Los Angeles wasn’t a typical stop for him. How many times had he been here? Perhaps he could guess who he was headed towards. Honestly, he didn’t get along with himself about half of the time. How many times had he been here? Who had he been at the time? Or how likely was it that he would return later?

He had just reached the edge of the park when the answer hit him. Well, actually, a rippling wave of potential energy hit him and then abruptly cut off, leaving him stunned and blinking next to a “Do not walk on the grass” sign.

Oh. Right. The last time he had been here was his first encounter with the Weeping Angels.

There was something there, he thought; something important.

Something very important: He’d met a vampire. He’d given that vampire his sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor whooped with glee, jumping with so much enthusiasm he nearly dropped his mess of a teleportation device. He could save Los Angeles. He could get his TARDIS back. He could save Martha.

Grinning from ear to ear, the Doctor snatched a few dislocated teleport pieces from the ground and took off at a sprint.

* * *

 

Angel mumbled an apology for nearly walking over the man behind him and stepped around him. Fingers digging into his pocket in search of keys, Angel headed down the sidewalk by the low stone wall that led to the church parking lot.

Four steps later, the smell registered in his brain and he spun around.

The man was tall, lanky, and - even standing still with that curious expression - brimmed with energy. He looked human. Angel suspected that he’d recently been near an explosion. His hair was standing on end, there were several telltale smudges on one side of his face that were probably linked to the faint smell of smoke, and dirt along one side of his long coat that probably came from a fall. He was also holding a pile of junk.

“If you’re looking for your friend,” Angel said, “you’ve just missed him.”

The man glanced over his shoulder like he wasn’t sure Angel was addressing him. “Looking for my friend? Well, it’s a bit… What makes you say that?”

Angel rolled his eyes. He really was too tired to play games. “Because I’ve gone two hundred years without meeting a single alien and I don’t like that chances of meeting two of the same kind by accident on the same day. So you’re either with the Doctor and I can’t help you or you’re looking for him and I won’t help you.”

Angel expected the man to either look offended or angry (off of which he was going to base his decision of whether or not his clenched fist would ended up colliding with the man’s face) but instead he look downright confused. He mouthed, “the Doctor,” and looked down at his (in Angel’s opinion rather ridiculous) shoes. He apparently found the answer on the end of his shoes though, because his face brightened just as he rocked forward to inspect the toes.

“Oh!” he said. “Right! Of course. I really should have thought of this.” He waved his free hand, pointing between Angel and himself a few times. “I mean, I really should have. It’s funny the things you don’t think of, particularly when it’s you involved.” He gave Angel a brief embarrassed smile before he caught sight of Angel’s expression and his face fell again. “This is going to be a lot harder than I originally thought.”

Angel crossed his arms. Sometimes it was easier to get information out of people by not talking. Particularly when they seemed to be as willing to fill the silence as this man seemed to be. Also, the constantly changing emotions were making Angel a bit dizzy.

His guess seemed to be correct, as the man did not wait very long for Angel to respond. In fact, Angel wasn’t sure if the pause was intended for him or for the man’s thoughts to catch up with his tongue. Either way, he seemed to come to a conclusion in the few seconds of silence.

“You’ve got me,” he admitted. “I’m an alien. But I'm not looking for the Doctor. I've just come to pick up that.” He pointed at the sonic screwdriver Angel still had gripped in his hand.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s advanced technology isn’t it? My people have strict rules about leaving tech like that lying about on planets like this.” He drifted over to a stone wall encircling the church and set his pile of junk carefully on top of it. A metal cylinder rolled off of the mess and dangled by a short wire, knocking against the brown stonework. Angel suspected he had put the junk down for the sole purpose of freeing both hands to better gesture at the whole planet.

Angel didn’t move.

“He’s a bit busy now, so he asked me to go pick it up for him.” The man in the brown coat broke Angel’s gaze for a moment to look over his shoulder.

  
“He’s a time traveler. He could have got it himself.”

The man sighed in exasperation. “I know! That just makes him a lazy sort of bloke doesn’t it? I'll be sure to tell him that once he catches up with me.” He took a step closer reaching out to grab the sonic screwdriver out of Angel’s hand.

Angel punched him. The man went tumbling.

“What’d you do that for?” The man complained, crouching with one hand held up in surrender and the other rubbing his jaw.

“You’re lying,” Angel snarled. “Don’t say you weren’t. You’re not nearly as good at it as you think.”

The man stopped rubbing his jaw. A sudden seriousness enveloped him. He met Angel’s eyes and Angel had the sudden impression that he could see more of Angel than Angel would like. His eyes had the depth of age that Angel typically only saw in other vampires, and the same sharp intelligence as the Doctor. Perhaps it was a trait that all of these aliens shared. Something in Angel really hoped not.

“You are sharp aren’t you?” The man stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. Angel couldn’t decide if it was a sign of compliance or confidence. “I always do find the clever ones.”

Angel took few casual steps toward the wall in case the man had some sort of weapon in his coat pocket. If he needed to he could jump behind the thick stones for some protection. “So what do you want this for?” he asked, nodding to the sonic screwdriver as he shoved it into his own pocket.

“Good things! I promise. And I’d love to explain, really, I would. It’s a pretty good story as far as stories go but there really isn’t time for all of that. It’s a sonic screwdriver and nobody ever hurt anyone with a screwdriver anyway.”

“You’d be surprised the amount of damage you can do with a screwdriver.” Angel murmured, taking the screwdriver out of his pocket to give it an experimental spin between his fingers.

The man watched it like it was the last glass of water in the Sahara desert. “Don’t do that.”

“What happened to the Doctor?” Angel asked, now that he clearly had the alien’s attention.

The man blinked his attention away from the screwdriver. “What?”

“The Doctor,” Angel repeated. “You’ve obviously spoken to him since you know I had this. The Weeping Angels were going to chase after him. Did he get away?”

“Right. The Weeping Angels.” He ran his hand through his hair, considering. “Well, they did catch up to him eventually. They dragged him back to 1969. It's a good year to get stuck in actually...you’ve got the moon landing, Abby Road, Monty Python…”

“Jets beat the Colts.” Angel added.

The man grinned. “Exactly! Although really, I prefer cricket myself.” All of his previous signs of hurry seemed to drift away as he considered his preference in sports, only to come crashing back a few seconds later. “So!” he said a little too loudly. “The Doctor, with a little help from me and a few others, constructed a bit of a time loop that ended with him in the TARDIS and the Weeping Angels all looking at each other. They’re nothing but stone now.”

Angel waited a few moments to be sure the man wasn’t going to continue. He didn’t. Instead he seemed to have decided that the quickest way to get what he wanted was to answer Angel’s questions. “How do you know him?”

“The Doctor?” The man seemed to consider this for a moment. “We grew up together. Went to the same school. Had the same friends. That sort of thing.” He furrowed his brow, fixing Angel with a curious look. “Why do you care? You knew him for, what? Half an hour?”

Angel had to admit it was a fair point. He shrugged. “He did me favor. After I’d punched him.” The man touched his jaw again and grumbled something in a language Angel didn’t recognize. “And he risked his life for someone he’d never met. Evil doesn’t do that.”

The man nodded and wandered over to the pile of junk he had set on the wall. His fingers sorted through the scraps until he found a few wires and started twisting them onto what looked to Angel like spare parts from a toaster oven. “So…” he asked as he settled the piece into the pile, “Do I get the sonic screwdriver back?”

Angel considered him for a moment and then held out the screwdriver. The man grinned like Christmas had come early and ran the short distance between them. His hand wrapped around the other end of the sonic screwdriver but Angel didn’t let go. Instead he asked, “What’s your name?”

The man hesitated. It was brief, only a moment, but long enough for Angel to know that it wouldn’t be the truth.

But he didn’t get the chance to lie because it was at that point that people started shooting lasers at them. A line of bright red light hit the stone wall just inches from their hands. “Out of time, then,” the man said with a grin. Both he and Angel jumped over the short stone wall.

“Thought you could hide from us forever, Doctor?” came a rasping voice.

“Not really!” the man called back good-naturedly.

“Doctor?” Angel mouthed. He was sure he was getting a headache.

The man who was apparently the Doctor grinned at him. “I told you it was a long story.”

Rock splinted off of the top of the wall, causing both men to duck their heads.

“So’s that a title that gets passed on or are you a shapeshifter?” Angel asked, shifting down the stone wall away from the spot where he had jumped over.

The Doctor shifted in the opposite direction, tilting his head and trying to get a look at the pile of junk still sitting on top of the wall. “No,” he said, inching along the ground. “I’m the same person, just--” He ducked his head again as a particularly large piece of rock cracked off of the wall several inches from the device. “Do you think that you could distract them for a tick?”

Angel leaned his head back and slowly pushed his way up to look over the wall. There were three of them. Two male. One female. Average height. Average build, nondescript brown hair...in fact, they were so average that he might have suspected them to be demons (or aliens, he corrected) wearing disguises anyway. Nothing looked that normal naturally. As it was, the unreasonably large laser guns sort of gave it away. He ducked back down as two of them spotted him and redirected their fire.

Well, that was two distracted at least. As for the last one… He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a stake. He paused, waiting for a gap in the laser fire and to nod to the Doctor to indicate that the distraction was close at hand. In one smooth motion he stood, threw the stake that the woman who had not redirected her fire and dived back down behind the cover of the wall. He heard a shout followed by an electronic squealing noise.

By the time Angel had rolled over and leaned against the wall again the Doctor had scrambled to his side, holding the pile of junk he must have collected from its perch on the wall. “Right,” he said. “Have you got transport? I think you’ve made them angry.”

Angel did not think that he had been the one to make them angry. He glared at the Doctor, hoping that it would convey how much this whole scenario was his fault.

The Doctor grinned back at him.

“My car’s in the parking lot out back.”

“Great! Off we go then.” And without so much as counting to three, the Doctor sprinted from behind the wall.

“Wait!” Angel stood in protest to the sudden execution of the plan that he wasn’t sure he liked or understood.

Of course that meant that he was no longer protected by the wall. Great.

For a brief moment he and the man with the ray gun stared at each other. He seemed just as shocked as Angel was about Angel’s sudden decision that he didn’t need cover anymore.

Angel ran. Two steps on top of the wall and then a flying leap over the man who had just started firing at him again. He hit the ground at a run, dashed past the other man shooting at where the Doctor’s coattails had just disappeared around the corner of the church, and bowled through what used to look like an average woman and now looked like a very large, very angry, very red fish with legs. A push of speed and he had caught up with the Doctor and then passed him.

Five steps from his car a beam of light shot past him on his right. He could see a second beam to his left reflected in the black shine of his car. “If they mess up the finish I’m going to be very upset,” Angel grumbled and rolled under a shot of laser fire to his right. It was an intentionally messy roll. More of a slide, really. He dragged his one hand behind him, grabbing a fist full of gravel which he flung in the direction of the attackers as he stood on the other side of the beam. It wasn’t much, mostly a distraction to give him time to gauge the situation.

It wasn’t good. Although one had taken on the appearance of a fish, that didn’t seem to be limiting its ability to breathe. It stood between the two men who continued to fire the lasers in a continuous stream, hemming the Doctor in where he stood with his back to Angel’s car.

“Angel…” the Doctor said, his voice strained.

“A human is not going to help you,” the fish said. “They’re barely intelligent and they are certainly not faster than light.” She hefted the laser gun to point at Angel, but did not fire. One wide, unblinking eye, yellow golden with a huge black pupil, fixed on him, while the other, a shocking sky blue, watched the Doctor. Angel noticed a peculiar triangular pattern in the way the light shimmered silvery off her otherwise-red scales. The size of the gun made a lot more sense in the webbed hand.

“You can stop this, Maz,” the Doctor said. “Give Martha back and you can just go back to your ship and fly away.”

Angel shifted his footing. He might not be faster than light, but he suspected he was much faster than the arm that was holding the gun. He was pretty sure he could remove the arm and a third of the problem. That still left two guns...lasers… This whole alien thing just wasn’t fair, he was sure of it.

“Fly away?” the fish - whose name was apparently Maz - said. “I’ve spent my life working for this. Our people have spent lifetimes conducting this research and I am going to be the one to prove all of the theories correct.”

“We,” corrected the man to her left. Maz’s golden eye swiveled around to point at the man. “It’s a group project. Remember?”

The golden eye rolled up and redirected at the Doctor. “Then why am I doing all of the work?” Maz muttered under her breath. She lifted the gun higher, regaining focus. “Here’s what we’ll do: You give us the regulator and we will return your pet and your box. It’s a simple exchange. I don’t see what the fuss is about.”

“I’m the one who remembered to bring weapons,” the man to the left grumbled.

“Your experiment will kill half of the people on this planet!” the Doctor shouted at Maz over the complaints.

“You don’t know that,” the man to the right spoke up. He looked at the others. “Right? How could he?”

“Actually, I do!” the Doctor shouted, his voice full of exasperation, which made his switch to a conversational tone somewhat jarring. “Angel, this is a lovely car. How’s the stereo?”

“Pretty good considering the year,” Angel responded, keeping his voice calm. He hoped “stereo” wasn’t supposed to be some form of code, because he sure didn’t know that the Doctor meant by it. He tensed anyway, ready for any small distraction to jump into action. Maybe he could push the fish into the man closest to him, steal a gun and then...

“He’s not a teacher’s aid or something, is he?” the man on the right whispered.

“This is ridiculous!” Maz sputtered. “This is some backwoods planet. It’s not like it’s important!”

“Ahhhh come on. It’s not that bad. I mean, have you heard their music?” The Doctor leaned into the car, turned the key that Angel had left in the ignition in his hurry to the church, and flipped on the radio.

“Don’t move!” Maz shouted. Angel tensed in case she decided to fire at him, but the Doctor raised a placating hand.

”Wait, wait, wait. If you’ll just consider for a moment…” the radio squealed as he adjusted the channel. “…the possibilities of earth music. It’s _wonderful_ .” The station switched to a song that Angel thought sounded like two cats trying to kill each other. The Doctor shrugged one shoulder, his other hand still turning the radio dial. “Mostly,” he hedged before plowing forward, “I mean, in a few thousand years, earth will produce the number one song in the _galaxy_. Can you imagine?”

The fish people apparently could not. One of the men shifted his gun from Angel to the Doctor’s head instead.

The radio settled onto some sort of rap song, which Angel didn’t think was going to help the argument for saving the planet. In fact, he thought playing music had to be one of the worst plans he’d ever seen. Seeming to give up on the plan, the Doctor raised his other hand and slid back down from where he had been perched on the car door.

“All right, all right,” he said, showing both sides of his hands before dropping them back to his sides. “You could shoot me, and I can see how you think that’s an option. If it’s in my pocket, then you could just take it. But what if I hid it somewhere? _Then_ where would you be?”

One of the men cast a nervous glance at Maz before focusing his attention back on the Doctor, and the other shifted uncomfortably. Maz’s expression remained unreadable, although Angel suspected that this wasn’t really true. He had limited experience trying to determine how a fish felt about anything.

A fierce smile flashed across the Doctor’s face. “Care to roll the dice?” he challenged, with a shake of his head.

The spines on top of Maz’s head bristled. She opened her mouth and started to speak, but the Doctor cut her off: “But this is your warning. This is your _only_ warning. Pack your equipment and start thinking long and hard about what are considered ‘universally safe experiment conditions,’ because if you don’t, I will stop you.”

As far as threats went, Angel thought, that one was tastefully nonspecific.

That sort of threat, however, wasn’t particularly effective against people who lacked the imagination or intelligence to fill in the blank. The man on the left adjusted the grip on the gun. “You can’t stop us,” he said. “Who do you think you are? You can’t threaten us.” They really did sound like kids.

“I’m the Doctor.” The statement hung in the air. It seemed to carry a weight to it in spite of the new song that started beating its way out of the car speakers. “And that,” the Doctor gestured at the car, sonic screwdriver in hand “…is Usher. And it just so happens that if I do this…”  There was a familiar shriek for a brief moment before the volume of the song multiplied itself to sharply uncomfortable levels. “…You’ll briefly lose control of most motor functions,” the Doctor concluded as if his audience was still listening to him instead of clutching the sides of their heads.

Wincing and with the palms of his hands shoved against his ears, Angel ran for the car. The noise had reached a level where Angel could feel it almost as much as he could hear it. He clambered into the driver’s seat and ignited the engine, catching a brief glance of the Doctor smiling away in the shotgun seat, pile of junk settled in his lap and his fingers poking into his ears like one of those hear-no-evil monkeys. Angel threw the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot.

They drove three blocks before the Doctor casually reached over and switched off the radio. The sudden silence left Angel’s ears ringing. “I knew it,” Angel grumbled, rubbing at one of his ears.

“What’s that?”

“Rap music really is an alien weapon.”

The Doctor laughed. It was a surprisingly open laugh; particularly when compared to the man Angel had met 600 years ago…or was it an hour ago?

“No, not a weapon,” the Doctor interrupted Angel’s thoughts before he could work up to another time travel headache. “Just a weakness. Bloflosuians are particularly sensitive to a lot of sounds. They originally evolved for a far more aquatic existence. It’s only in the past couple thousand years they had to deal with sound waves traveling through air.”

“But _Usher_? Couldn’t they be allergic to Beethoven?” Angel rubbed at his ear.

“Every time!” the Doctor complained, waving a hand in frustration. “I just managed immobilizing three people who wanted to blow our heads off with an outdated car radio–”

“Hey!” Angel protested.

“…and you’re complaining that you didn’t like the song!” the Doctor continued, pointing an accusing finger at Angel. Any annoyance the Doctor felt, however, seemed short lived. They had only driven another block before he started chatting away again like nothing had happened.

“There are other songs that contain the right frequencies and rhythms of course, but that song is the only one that happens to be in the top 10 songs for this year. There’s not much of a chance of finding Phyllis Nelson playing on the radio every five minutes and most of the others aren’t even from this century.”  

As he spoke, the Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver again and started dismantling something that looked like it might have once been a hot plate. Angel glared at the screwdriver while he waiting for a light to turn green and tried to remember when the Doctor had grabbed it from him. He thought he had been holding it when they jumped over the wall. Maybe the Doctor had weaseled it out of his pocket shortly after that. Not that it mattered much now, but Angel was typically very good at noticing pickpockets and the skill was yet another item on an increasingly long list of things the Doctor was very good at.

“So who’s Martha?” If Angel was going to get roped into whatever was going on, he would probably need to get up to speed on what exactly was going on.

“My friend. We were going to nick the regulator out of their machine. It can’t function without one, and the components are difficult to make. It’ll put them out of business. And, _well,_ ” the Doctor rubbed at a smudge of soot on his cheek, “it doesn’t regulate without it.”

“It exploded,” Angel said.

“Yes! So we were making a hasty getaway and I went right and Martha went left. Now they have Martha and I have the regulator.” He pulled a small red cube from his pocket. Fluorescent red light glowed from the edges that made it look like energy was contained within and was about to split the cube apart at any moment.

“Not exactly a fair trade,” Angel commented. “So this is a rescue mission _and_ a save the world mission.”

The Doctor tucked the cube back into his pocket. “Sounds about right.” He plucked a yellow wire from the pile on his lap and started to twist it around onto an exposed red wire.

“And that is?” Angel nodded his head at the pile in the Doctor’s lap.

“A short range particle transmission unit.” A moment later the Doctor looked up, just, Angel suspected, to see his confused expression. “A teleport,” he clarified.

Not willing to give the Doctor the satisfaction of explaining that, and honestly it was the sort of day where a teleport just seemed like a natural progression to the weirdness, Angel instead asked, “Can we go back to the bit where you’re a completely different person?”

The Doctor let out a long frustrated sigh, sinking back into the car seat. “Everyone makes such a fuss... We’ve just been shot at by a lot of fish with heat lasers who are going to blow up half the planet if we don’t stop them from completing their senior thesis experiment, and you want to know why my face looks different?”

“Pretty much. You said you weren’t a shapeshifter. Just so you know, if you had to steal that body, we’re going to have a problem.”

“I really hate Jack Finney,” the Doctor grumbled, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not a body snatcher. It’s just a thing my people – I – can do. If I get mortally injured or die or happen to get really, _really_ bored, my body regenerates. It replaces every single cell with new cells. Brand new me.” He returned his attention to the teleport.

“You turn into a completely different person.” Some part of Angel felt a twinge of jealousy. He tried to stomp out the feeling, but, as is the way of feelings, it only grew with the attention.

Angel wondered how much of his fascination crept into his voice because the Doctor looked at him curiously for several long moments before he answered with a question. “How old are you?”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “Two hundred and forty. And some change.”

“Do you remember what you were like fifty years ago? Or a hundred years ago?”

“Sure.”

“If I were to take you from fifty years ago and stick him in this car with me would he be asking the same questions?”

“I probably would have shoved you out of the car by now.” Angel said, pondering the wisdom of his younger self.

The Doctor nodded. “It’s like that but all at once and with new hair.”

Angel nodded and turned back to watch the road. Mulling over the new information, he wove through the Los Angeles streets. Driving has always helped him think. It was repetitive enough that it wouldn’t distract him and required enough concentration that his thoughts couldn’t bog him down.

Next to him, the Doctor seemed happy enough to continue tinkering in relative silence. He would often start humming snippets of songs or take up a brief commentary on what he was doing to no one in particular (“Now, I need a way to prevent the feeds from crossing during initiation…maybe if I…”). They had just run into some of the famed Los Angeles traffic when Angel asked, “So you’re immortal?”

“No.” There was a tone of relief in his voice that Angel respected. “Are you?”

“Technically.”

The Doctor paused his work to look at Angel, curiosity shining through every feature. There was a moment of sharp clarity as Angel realized that this _was_ the same man that had shown so much fascination at Angel’s demonstration of a threshold. “Technically?” the Doctor prodded.

“Sure,” Angel said. “My body won’t get old and die naturally. But most vampires don’t even live as long as the average human.”

“A lot of vampires trip and fall onto fence posts?”

Angel laughed. “No, but I did see that once. No, most vampires get stupid or get killed in clan in-fighting or run into someone who knows how to fight back. That last one’s pretty new. You wouldn’t believe how many vampires Bram Stoker has killed.”

“Personally?” the Doctor seemed perfectly serious.

“No, but the book’s practically an instruction manual." 

“Ah.” The Doctor seemed disappointed. “So Dracula…?”

“Owes me money,” Angel sighed.

The Doctor looked pleased.

“And then, of course, there’s the bit about being evil.”

“Ah, yes. You did say that. But the universe does not always reward the good and punish the bad,” the Doctor said wearily, tugging a red wire out of the pile of junk.

Angel knew that quite well. “No, I could probably kill a human a day and so long as I was discreet enough about it no one would stop me.” The Doctor stopped moving, the wire he held half twisted around a screw. “But most vampires, we…can’t do that. Not forever. It’s not enough somehow. So you stop just killing people and start hurting them.”

Angel paused, regretting that small confession. He didn’t normally talk to people about what it was like before he got a soul. Or, a small voice reminded him, after. There was nothing to be gained by explaining that vampires didn’t just kill because they needed to eat, but that they killed because that was what they were made to do. The same way an artist would only be truly happy doing art or a car mechanic was only satisfied when covered in engine grease. He suspected it had something to do with their conversation back on the TARDIS. He still wanted to shake the Doctor and tell him that yes, vampires were evil all of the time. Or was it that he wanted the Doctor to tell him again that there was still room in the space between good and evil for men like them?

His hand tightened on the wheel as he finally managed to turn out of the line of cars and start making his way through the darker, less crowded streets.

To his surprise, the Doctor prodded him on. “What happens when hurting people isn’t enough either?” he asked.

Angel shrugged. “You find new things to destroy, but eventually you decide to destroy the world.”

“And when worlds aren’t enough, you destroy the universe,” the Doctor whispered so softly that Angel suspected he wasn’t supposed to hear.

Long ago, Angel had found that the best way to deal with hearing things that people did not intend for him was to pretend like he’d never heard it, so he continued. “Which is what happens to most of the older vampires. Sometimes it takes longer than it does for others. But every ancient vampire I have ever met has tried at some point. And it’s gotten them all killed. Kikistos, The Master…”

The Doctor twitched so hard he knocked his knee against the door with an audible _thud_. “Who?” he choked.

“I know, I know, it’s a stupid name. I told him as much. He was really into it, too. He had the whole mouth-dripping-with-the-blood-of-his-victims thing. All poor Elizabethan English and living in the sewers. He apparently had a plan to bring about the apocalypse, but to be honest I was never really clear on the details.”

“Ah,” The Doctor said, rubbing at his knee.

“But like I said, it gets you killed. Kikistos apparently got a phone pole shoved through his chest for his trouble and the Slayer took time out of her day to crush the Master’s bones into dust.”

The Doctor winced. “Ouch.”

“Can’t say he didn’t deserve it.”

There was a brief pause while Angel took a left turn and the Doctor leaned his head back to look up at the buildings around them.

“How about you?” the Doctor asked casually, twisting in his seat to continue watching something that had caught his interest. “Ever feel an apocalypse coming on?”

Angel chuckled humorlessly at the phrasing. “Just the once. I came very close to sucking the world into hell.”

The Doctor turned back around to look at him. It wasn’t the expression Angel had expected. His brow crinkled like he was trying to figure something out more than having trouble believing what Angel had said. “What happened?” he asked.

“I died.”

The Doctor didn’t push for more, which made Angel admit to himself that maybe the alien wasn’t that bad, and changed the subject, which made Angel think that maybe he shouldn’t have punched him…twice.

“So!” the Doctor announced far too cheerfully. “Not that I mind that much, seeing as away is as good a direction as any right now, but where are we going?”

“Home. It should be pretty safe.”

“Wonderful! Pop by your place, pick a few things up, finish this,” the Doctor whacked his hand against the junk that had nearly reached a level of order that would make it more of a contraption than a pile of junk. “…And then how do you feel about quick trip up to the moon?”


	2. Chapter 2

The moon.

The words seemed to bounce around in Angel's mind, changing inflection every time it crashed into the side of his skull.

The Moon.

_The_ moon.

The MOON.

For some reason, this idea seemed like a step too far. Time travel? While it gave him a headache, it was still possible. He knew demons that were naturally capable of it. Aliens? Sure, why not? He would have preferred to remain ignorant maybe, but it didn't seem altogether unreasonable that every single story that anyone ever said was silly and untrue would turn out to be reality.

But teleporting to the moon was not something he really wished to do. He didn't look it, but Angel was old. He still called computers things like "newfangled" when no one was around to make fun of him. And he suspected that someone who couldn't remember how to check cell phone messages no matter how many times people explained it to him should not be allowed to teleport anywhere, and certainly not off of the planet.

Nope, he liked Earth. It was home. It was familiar. Angel nodded to himself as he led the still-talking Doctor through the back garden and into the main lobby. After flippantly tossing out the whole go-to-the-moon idea the Doctor had moved right on to explaining how it was that he was building a teleport out of bits of a toaster (that apparently belonged to a Sarah Jane, who was going to be very upset) and had continued talking long after Angel had stopped paying attention.

"Wow," the Doctor was saying. "Really. I always figured that a vampire would live in a big space, but I never considered a hotel. I thought, 'sure, castles, theaters, Louisiana, parking lots of Helmetran VI' but I honestly never considered a hotel." The Doctor dinged the bell on the counter experimentally and turned to grin back at Angel. "Why do you need all of the space anyway? I suppose I can't really make a comment about unnecessarily large living spaces…"

"Mostly, I think he likes to have room to pace in the daytime," Cordelia answered, exiting from Wesley's office.

The Doctor took in this information with a single exaggerated nod.

Cordelia, needing little encouragement on the worst of days, took this as a sign of his interest and started in on her sales pitch. The sales pitch was often a fascinating thing to watch from the outside, Angel mused. Cordelia had developed over the years the ability to sell something that she could not actually describe. She could dance around the issue of demons, ghosts, and magic for as long as it was needed to determine just how much the potential customer knew about the topic and then would alter everything from then on to match that viewpoint.

Of course, when potential customers entered talking about vampires, a different plan was needed. Cordelia seemed to be working backwards now, trying to figure out the point when the Doctor would insist that she was joking.

The Doctor seemed to be employing the same tactics.

"So you know our resident vampire detective?" Cordelia was asking.

"Sure, yeah, we go back _years_. Or hours, depending on your perspective."

"How about from my perspective?"

The Doctor sucked on his teeth, considering the question before concluding, "For you it'd be about thirty eight minutes. No, more like thirty nine, now, I suppose."

Cordelia raised an eyebrow at Angel, who was still standing just inside the door. Her look jolted him back into action, if only enough for him to take a few steps closer. "It's a bit of a long story," he admitted.

"And that's just from _his_ perspective," the Doctor chipped in as he examined the front counter. He picked up one of the business cards, flipped it over and mouthed the words, "Angel Investigations." He flipped it over again. "What is this?" he asked, waving the card at them. "Some sort of fish?"

"It's an angel," came the three-way reply. Wesley exited his office to join in Angel and Cordelia's tired answer.

"Ah. So it is," the Doctor said, squinting at the card again before tucking it away in one of his pockets. "Never had much luck with angels myself…"

Although he had answered the Doctor's question, Wesley didn't really seem to acknowledge his presence. Instead, he quickly headed for Angel, saying, "Angel, good. I was a bit worried. I seem to have identified those statues from Cordy's vision and I think this one is going to take a bit of preparation. I can't even find a reference for one being killed."

"Don't worry about it, Wes."

"Oh? You did find the church then? Did you see them? And the girl?"

Angel leaned against the wall. "The girl's fine and you're right about the statues, Wes. They can knock you back in time. I'm only here because he gave me a ride," he nodded at the Doctor, who had found his way behind the counter and donned a pair of thick-rimmed glasses to poke away at the computer's keyboard.

"Hey!" Cordelia protested. "That's company property." She turned around to face Angel and said in a loud whisper, "Who is this guy, anyway?"

"Some sort of time traveler," Angel said, watching the Doctor point his sonic screwdriver at the computer screen and slowly draw it back. He felt no small satisfaction that both of the others seemed to find this idea just as difficult as he had found it.

"So what, " Cordelia asked, "is he doing here?"

"2001's a great year!" the Doctor said, not looking up from the computer.

Wesley adjusted his glasses. "Time travel? Using some sort of magics…"

"He has a machine," Angel interjected, not willing to vocalize that the TARDIS had smelled more organic than mechanical. At least the smells that he could recognize…

"Oh," Wesley said. "I suppose, theoretically, if time travel exists at any time it would also exist at all times. So it's not unusual at all that we ran into a time traveler."

Angel felt deeply grateful that Cordelia looked as horrified by Wesley's nonchalant acceptance of this new level of bizarre as he felt.

The Doctor, on the other hand, looked quite pleased. Leaving the computer for the time being, he wound his way back out to the lobby and held his hand out to Wesley. "That's quite good! A bit wrong. _Well_ , I say a bit. But still good for your first go." He shook Wesley's hand enthusiastically. "I'm the Doctor, and you are?"

"Wesley Wyndam-Price. I'm-"

"Brilliant!" the Doctor interrupted, smiling at Wesley like he had waited his whole life to meet him. "You even have the brainy specs."

"Er…" Wesley managed, touching his glasses. Before he could manage any more, the Doctor had moved on.

"Cordelia Chase," Cordy supplied when the Doctor reached her, matching his bright smile with her own.

"So this is the team," the Doctor concluded, stepping back to take them all in. "I love a team. You didn't tell me you had a team, Angel."

"Actually it's–" Angel started, nodding to Wesely.

"It's Wes's team." Cordelia said firmly, giving Wesley an encouraging smile.

Wesley stood a bit straighter.

The Doctor watched the three shift awkwardly for a moment and then said, "Of course," in a way that implied that he did not really understand what just happened at all but wasn't willing to poke the social grizzly bear to find out.

"We recently changed…" Angel started to explain.

"He's a great…" Cordelia said at the same time.

They both stopped to allow the other to continue. Neither did.

Just when Angel was thinking that he would have to start again, the Doctor abruptly changed the subject.

"Well," he said, nodding to Wesley in acknowledgment, "then I'm going to have to borrow your keyboard." He spun on his heel and before Cordelia could finish her first protest, he had tugged the keyboard away from the computer.

Quickly giving up on the verbal protests, Cordelia tried to physically take the keyboard away from the Doctor. Swiping a hand to snatch the end of the keyboard, she only caught empty air as the Doctor spun away from her, already buzzing at it with his screwdriver.

Wesley recovered and decided that, as the Leader, it was his job to intervene. After a few moments of gaping at the infantile game of keep-away, he straightened his jacket and bravely walked into the fray with a, "See here!"

Angel settled onto the couch to watch.

Several minutes later, Wesley was holding the half-dismantled keyboard (and not looking very happy about it), Cordelia stood between the Doctor and Wesley with her arms folded and tapping a few stray keys against her arm while the Doctor shouted that acid rain (and not the fun kind) could start raining through the roof and start melting their heads at any moment, but at least their computer would be intact.

Gunn settled on the couch next to Angel, resting his axe across his knees and letting out an impressed breath. "Something I should know about?" he asked.

"A time traveling alien," Angel nodded to the Doctor, "is trying to build a teleport so we can go to the moon and save a girl and stop a bunch of fish people from…ehh," Angel paused, trying to think of what it was exactly that was going to happen. Maybe that was the acid rain the Doctor had been talking about? He shrugged and used the Doctor's words, "Destroying half the planet."

"There are aliens now? Since when are there aliens?"

"Since they shot lasers at me half an hour ago."

Gunn grunted in acknowledgment. Or maybe frustration. Across the lobby, it seemed that the Doctor's words of doom had stunned Cordelia and Wesley long enough for the Doctor to snatch back the keyboard and start wiring it into the contraption.

"Wait," Gunn said suddenly. "Did you say 'destroy half the planet'?"

"Well," the Doctor answered, jerking his head slightly to the side with the word, but not enough to look up from his work, "more like three-eights in the end. But that's not going to happen."

"Why would anyone want to do that?" Cordelia asked, sudden concern erasing her annoyance over lost office equipment.

"Plenty of reasons," the Doctor said, a slight growl in his voice. "None of them very good. But the Bloflosuians - that's what they are Angel, not fish people - happen to be trying to create an energy-efficient atmospheric manipulation field."

Wesley moved around to watch the Doctor's tinkering with interest. "Weather control? That doesn't sound very destructive."

"Depends on the weather," Gunn said, standing up to join the others on the other side of the front desk. "Couple of hurricanes could cause a lot of damage."

"They could…" The Doctor agreed, glancing up at Gunn.

Gunn met the Doctor's gaze. "Angel says you're an alien."

"I am an alien," the Doctor said. He waited for Gunn's reaction with a sudden jarring stillness. Angel stood up and approached the group, stopping just behind the Doctor and Gunn.

Shrugging with indifference that Angel didn't believe, Gunn said, "Hey, if we get to go to the moon, you can't be that bad." His tone was casual, but there was still a tension about him that the Doctor either didn't notice or ignored. "What's the plan?"

"We're rescuing my friend, Martha, who's been taken by the Bloflosuians. We stole the regulator from their atmospheric modulator and blew it up, which they weren't too happy about. Apparently, this is the capstone of a Master's thesis as well as scientific progress, and they _really_ want to graduate."

"Well, who wouldn't?" Cordy quipped. "Blow up a planet, get a degree. No problem."

"Yes, well," the Doctor said, leaning back over his device, "the Bloflosu people are remarkably dense when it comes to off-world diplomacy. I believe they passed legislation that essentially allows them not to consider consequences outside their own species."

"And Hollywood thinks that all aliens are _hostile_ ," Cordy said, adding a _pfft_.

The Doctor gave Cordy a glance. "They're not. Inability to consider others is different from hostility, though the ends are often the same. Right," he straightened up, admiring his finished product. "Whoever's coming with, you won't need things like that," he nodded to the axe in Gunn's hand. "The metal will tamper with the transfer. Might try to fuse it with your arm on the other side…" he trailed off, as his concentration drifted back to his work.

"Like the Terminator!" Cordelia blurted a little too loudly, but instead of blushing as everyone turned to look at her in confusion, she continued. "You can't teleport guns and clothes and stuff," she explained, waving one hand at herself and then glancing up to gauge the other's reactions. "What? I can't watch movies? Oh, god, wait. If we have to go through naked, you boys are on your own."

A cough from the Doctor stopped her from continuing. "Er, no, that–that won't be a problem," he mumbled. "But I can't transport more than three people with this thing, anyway," the Doctor straightened up, tapping the teleport.

Angel moved forward automatically before remembering that he was no longer the one who got to make the decision about who went and who stayed. He glanced back at Wesley, who straightened up suddenly with the same realization.

Before Angel had a chance to start the awkward authority dance with Wesley, Gunn brushed past him and stood with his arms folded next to the Doctor. "Wes," he said, "I'm sorry, man, but I'm gonna be the first black person on the moon. I don't care what you say."

Wesley opened his mouth, closed it again, and then said, "Ah, well...yes, I suppose...of course, that...makes..."

He looked at Angel. "I guess that makes you two, then," he said with all the authority he could muster. "Cordelia and I will...wait for your call. Let us know if you need anything." He looked less than thrilled at the thought, but resolved nonetheless.

"Not that we can actually get to the moon with anything you need," Cordelia said.

"Not as such, no," Wesley agreed.

The Doctor, who had been rocking impatiently, paused on his toes. "Great! No backup. Our specialty." The Doctor clapped his hands. He stepped delicately onto the hotplate in the center of the pile of wires. It creaked under his weight. "Everyone crowd in. Keep your arms and legs inside the transport field at all times, this airline is not responsible for any missing socks or electronic devices, all of that and here we go!"

The Doctor slammed his foot down on a pedal that stuck out of the device.

There was a deep _clunk_ and a _whoosh_ , and Angel suddenly felt like he was being sucked down a drain, only in reverse. He felt himself jostle painfully against Gunn beside him, who was saying something about how much he suddenly did _not_ like this.


	3. Chapter 3

As far as kidnappings went, this one wasn't so bad, Martha Jones mused. Her guards were first-timers to the whole keeping hostages thing, so she was dragged along from room to room, deck to deck with not much more than a hesitant prodding gesture with a gun, and she practically got a tour of the whole ship. The experience reminded her in many ways of a school trip to the aquarium, in the undersea feel of the rooms with their bubbling cylindrical consoles, the ship framework that reminded her of bright coral, and the spattering of students in each room staring their lidless eyes at her. In the spirit of a school, she asked a few interested-sounding questions, and she got most of what this whole experiment was about, too.

It was a resoundingly dull experiment. It turned out that it wasn't so much weather manipulation as weather...nudging and hoping. But to the fish people of Bloflosu, who had only just started to evolve to adapt to solid land living, the mysteries of weather were held in the same reverence as the mysteries of the stars to ancient humans.

Martha had wondered aloud how a race could travel the stars before traveling their own land masses, to which her guard - Gare, was his name - had scoffed the reply that water and space were far more alike than air. She supposed he had a point, so she had then asked why they weren't swimming through the halls rather than walking. This had earned her an even more reproaching glare.

"Walking," the fish had said very seriously, "is the course of progress."

"Ah," she'd replied meekly. "Of course."

Eventually, they ended up settled on the bridge - a bright room where cylinders and tanks of bubbling water lit with entire spectrum of colors seemed to replace normal spaceship-like consoles. There was a screen at the front of the room that looked more like a scrying pool somehow hung on the wall. Martha watched the proceedings from one of the empty stations in the back - which was one of two that actually did have a comprehensible control panel - while Gare kept a lazy watch on her. The chair she sat in was too big for her by a factor of at least two, and there was an awkward dip in the center that she assumed accommodated the spine of their tails.

"Let me guess," she said, fingering the edge of one of the buttons, "fine motor digital control is the course of progress?"

"No one was allowed to come if they didn't pass their New Operating Standards test," Gare replied smugly.

Martha just nodded and smiled.

"Maz lost them," the fish at what Martha imagined to be the helm said. "Something about an usher…" The Helm Fish slouched so far down in her chair that she was nearly horizontal.

Gare said something that sounded like a curse under his breath. "But she made the offer? The hostage for the regulator?"

"Yup. Apparently they just took off. No response."

"They?" Martha asked.

The fish made a jerking motion with its body that Martha took to be a head nod. "Your friend and a new one. Maz should be coming back now with the rest of the seniors."

Gare cursed and twisted to a glass cylinder filled with bright blue bubbles. "She's going to expect me to have this done. Nevermind I have to drag the local wildlife-" he waved a fin with its too-long fingers at Martha, "-around the ship. But Maz gets up here and it'll be 'where's my research, Gare? You're so useless Gare.' Who put _her_ in charge anyway?" He slapped a fin against the glass and the bubbles shifted to a greenish hue.

"She did," the helmsfish said listlessly.

Gare grunted. "Is it too late to hold a vote?"

"By about three cycles. We're almost done. Just...go with it."

Gare continued to grumble, and Martha took the opportunity to roll her giant chair along the floor to examine a set of grey metal tubes venting into the room. She sniffed experimentally at the air coming from them.

"Hey!" The fish at the helm said, voice raised but emotionless like the empty anger of someone just woken from a nap. "Keep the local wildlife away from the vents."

"What are they for?" Martha asked, backing away.

"Keeping you alive," the fish said. "Gare, does she have to stay here? I wanted to fit in a nap before Miss Unelected Official arrives."

"I won't bother you," Martha promised, holding up her hands.

"Too late," both fished said together.

"Sorry," Martha said, rolling her eyes, "didn't mean for my kidnapping to be so inconvenient." So, life support vents, bubble computers, and...she eyed some of the wires that ran along the floor and disappeared into the largest bubble computer by the helmsfish. Looked important. Looked like something the Doctor would tamper with immediately upon entering the room.

THUD. Everyone jumped as the sound of something large slamming against metal shook through the room.

"That's Maz, right?"

"Is Maz getting back here by launching herself from the planet in a canon?"

"Uh..."

"I don't think the thudding sound outside the ship is Maz." The helmsfish ghosted her long, thin fingers across the glass and the bubbles changed to a red color. "Something's trying to open the side hatch."

* * *

They were on the _moon_.

Angel looked around in disbelief. Ahead of them, off the cliff of bright moondust, eternity stretched out. Angel had felt eternity, but never looked on it. His senses were disoriented in the lack of air: his sight so much sharper that he felt, conversely, like he couldn't focus right, and there were no scents whatsoever. Well, except for the two men beside him. Speaking of,

"So, Doctor," Gunn said, glancing around with the same awe that Angel felt, "how come I can breathe? Whoa…" Gunn stopped halfway through turning around, and nudged Angel to look. Angel turned, and saw the earth.

Very few things anymore rendered Angel into a state of speechlessness, but this was one of them. Far out ahead of them, Earth turned silently, despite the commotion of animals and people and their machines that raged on the surface. They had an excellent view of a mostly-cloudless Africa. Angel had been to northern Africa a few times, but hadn't ventured much further south than Casablanca. Now he could see the entire continent at once.

"...bubble," the Doctor was saying. Angel tried to remember the first part of the sentence. He'd heard it, but its significance had been lost in the view. "Should last another two minutes."

"Wait!" Gunn turned back to the Doctor. "You mean we get two minutes on the moon and then we're just going to be _on the moon_? As in vacuum? What is wrong with you? Take us back!"

The Doctor grabbed the device from the ground. "Right. No time to lose. If we _do_ lose some time, Angel, you grab Gunn." The Doctor snagged Gunn's hand. "Stay close. In the bubble. In the bubble is good. You too, Angel," he added, setting off at a run away from the Earth, Angel and Gunn following as closely as they could. "Although I don't think it's as much of an issue. Just be sure to exhale if you _do_ exit the bubble. I bet your lungs exploding would twinge. A nice scream would do. It's sort of a nice, natural response to being dumped in a vacuum isn't it?"

Angel cursed under his breath about aliens who had no sense whatsoever. If they'd had to contend with a vacuum, why not just leave the human behind? Then again, the Doctor had to breathe, too. Angel wondered if he hadn't mentioned himself because he was more likely to survive, or if his own survival was less of a priority.

They reached the edge of a crater, catching a glimpse of a deep red structure - all harsh angular walls connected by oddly jutting tubes - hunched at the bottom before the Doctor plowed over the edge and they all became preoccupied with watching the grey dust fly away from their feet as they took great, bounding leaps down the hill.

Angel heard Gunn half laugh and half yell at the first jump, the light gravity taking them higher than expected and pulling them back slowly. Angel found himself grabbing onto the Doctor's other sleeve to prevent himself from falling away from the group and out of whatever small bubble of grace the Doctor had in the form of that metal contraption he had under his arm.

Angel was used to being able to leap high and lightly, but he found a surprising thrill with how easily it came here and in the danger from being just a bit out of control.

They descended further into the crater, approaching a door to the structure more rapidly than Angel expected. He suddenly wondered how well a screeching halt would work in a place with less friction.

He didn't have to wonder for very long before the answer became apparent: not very well. They crashed into the door with little grace, Angel into the Doctor and Gunn into Angel.

"Knock, knock," Gunn groaned, and Angel had to agree: if they were trying to sneak their way in, then they'd failed spectacularly at that part of the mission.

The sonic screwdriver made an appearance again, the Doctor pointing it at the latch on the door. "Thirty, twenty-nine, come on, come on..." the Doctor mumbled to himself.

They heard a click and the Doctor pulled Angel and Gunn closer, looking up at the size of the door. "I think we can cover the whole thing," he said. He pulled the door open, whooped and pushed everyone inside two steps, quickly shutting the door behind them.

He licked his finger and held it as far away from himself as possible. "Yup," he said, "We're good. And with fifteen seconds to spare!"

"Next time," Angel growled, "you should mention the fact that people might suffocate."

Gunn had turned and was looking out through the tiny window out at the moon. "Yeah," he said distractedly, "I'm going to be mad about that too...just as soon as I get over the fact that we're on the moon."

The Doctor beamed.

Angel shoved the Doctor toward the other end of the airlock that they were stuck in. "Yeah, good job. Don't we have people to save?"

Grumbling that Angel had no sense of fun, the Doctor moved to the other door.

"Angel," Gunn tugged at Angel's elbow, his voice in awe. "You've got to see this."

For a moment, Angel hesitated. He crossed his arms in a show of stubbornness to cover how unsure he was about this whole thing. If he took a moment to look out and appreciate that they were on the moon, well, he suspected that he might be stuck trying to deal with the fact that they were On The Moon. Best to save that for several hours in a dark room staring at a blank wall.

The door latch clicked.

"After we save the girl and the planet," Angel said. "Come on."

Laser fire opened up on them the instant Angel and the Doctor stepped over the threshold and they dove back in the airlock for cover.

Watching the red light streak past, Angel asked, "Do those things stun, vaporize, or electrify?"

"Oh, they superheat," the Doctor said happily. "It's brilliant, actually. Can cook a turkey in seconds. Leaves a nasty aftertaste though..." The Doctor dropped to his hands and knees and inched to the edge of the doorway. "I might be able to fry some of the weapons," he whispered. "I say we make a dash for it to the right. If we get enough space we might be able to find an entrance to a utility tunnel."

Angel and Gunn nodded.

The Doctor moved forward and then paused again. "Also, if you see my TARDIS, let me know. It's up here somewhere."

"What's-" Gunn started.

"Big, blue, says, 'police box' on the front," Angel explained. "It has a time machine inside."

"Ooookay," Gunn said. "Alien fish, utility tunnels, blue time machine, girl."

"That's the plan," the Doctor said. "Go." The sonic screeched and they heard several popping noises from down the hall. The Doctor took off at a run, Angel and Gunn following.

"Remind me why I didn't bring a crossbow," Angel said to Gunn as they dodged fire from a new hallway.

"The Doctor said that weapons would end up fused to us when we went through the teleport," Gunn answered. "Which does not make a ton of sense in my book, given that he brought several metal things." He waved at the sonic screwdriver as the Doctor directed it at a dead end of twisted coral tubing. The coral wall turned out to be a door that the screwdriver opened. It swished up into the ceiling, turning the dead end into a T-intersection when it revealed another hallway perpendicular to them. He grabbed the wall to make a tighter turn as the Doctor lead them down the branch to the left.

"I don't like weapons," the Doctor answered. "Ah! Here!" he skidded to a stop and pulled open a door in the wall. "In you go!"

Angel darted in without hesitation, Gunn close behind, Angel trying to indignantly work out in his mind whose mission this was and, therefore, who got to decide if weapons should be brought. The Doctor dashed passed him, though, down the narrow, dark corridor with exposed yellow and blue wiring and tubes filled with bubbling effervescent liquid, and Angel added that thought to the growing list of things he'd have to consider when he had more time. Or less patience.

The utility corridor was much smaller than the main one that they had been running down. Angel guessed it would be just enough room for one of the aliens to fit, which worked out to almost enough room for two of them to walk shoulder to shoulder. Pipes and wires snaked along the walls in primary colors.

"Utility tunnel, check," Gunn said behind Angel. "So what's the plan after we get the girl - Martha? - and the time machine? Cut the power? Wipe their hard drive? Set charges?"

"Poke at things until something interesting happens," the Doctor said.

"So one of those things."

"Yeah, one of those would work," the Doctor said. He leaned his head out around the corner of an intersection in the utility tunnel. "Now, if I were keeping a hostage, where would I put her?"

"Someplace secure," Angel said. "A brig?"

"It's a collegiate research lab. I don't think it has a brig." The Doctor took the right turn, walked two steps, shook his head, and turned around to take the left turning instead.

"The main lab, then?" Gunn suggested. "Collegiate folk like to guard their research like a brig."

"Certainly worth a go," the Doctor said, letting out a long breath. He pushed a hand through his hair and looked back over his shoulder at the previously rejected right tunnel.

An explosion rocked the ship, throwing them all backward against the wall. A harsh-sounding alarm blared and the sounds of voices and running feet arose above them and on the other side of the walls.

"Ah ha!" the Doctor yelled triumphantly, and dashed down the hallway to the right, where a thin layer of smoke was creeping along the ceiling toward them.

Dashing through the utility tunnels was easier and harder after the explosion. The smoke trail made it easy to pick a direction at any intersection, but soon it had filled the whole space with a grey acidic fog the brought tears to their eyes and left them nearly blind with water and burning. Gunn and the Doctor coughed and waved their hands while Angel moved forward by feeling along the tubing on the wall. Another right turn, and he picked out the sound of boots hitting the metal floor.

He paused and held his arm across the hallway. A few moments passed and a girl crashed into his arm. She yelped in surprise and stomped on his foot, making Angel yelp in response. Somewhere behind them in the tunnel, Gunn yelled in surprise at all the yelling.

"Martha!" the Doctor shouted, sounding delighted. "Wonderful! We've all met."

"Doctor?" Martha said into the smoke. She coughed and added a "Sorry," in Angel's direction.

The Doctor had felt his way forward, grabbing Angel's shoulder, and then continued blindly forward until he found the girl. "Martha! We're here to rescue you," he said. He tugged on their arms and they started to run again, but this time away from the smoke, the blinking lights in the walls their only source of guidance.

"You took too long," Martha said as they turned down another hallway. "So I pressed some buttons and pulled out some wires. Turns out, they were there for a reason. But Doctor, there's another atmospheric modulator. They had an old prototype and they're moving it to Earth now." She sounded British - Angel thought maybe from London - and Angel supposed it made sense that the British-sounding alien would find British-sounding companions. Perhaps she was from the same planet the Doctor was; Angel couldn't quite tell through the acridity of the smoke.

"But it can't work without that regulation thing, right?" Gunn asked.

"Right!" the Doctor agreed. "So we nab the TARDIS and get off of this station. Any idea where that is, Martha?"

"I've been all over this place and haven't seen it, but I did hear that there's a storage bay on the underdeck. Might be worth a look."

"Great!"

The smoke had begun to thin after a few random turns, and Angel was starting to be able to make out the others' vague shapes in the haze, which meant that they were also able to see any ladders they might be passing. They stopped at the first one they came to that went down to one of the lower utility tunnels. Angel went down first, followed quickly by Gunn.

The utility tunnels below were much the same as above, lit only by the glowing tubes of bubbling water along the ceiling and walls. Still, Angel scouted the area while he waited for everyone to climb down the ladder. The Doctor came after Gunn, his shoes thudding onto the ground as he jumped the last few rungs and shouted, "Everyone here?"

Angel was already around the corner, but he took one last look around yet another corner in the cramped labyrinth of tube-decked tunnels and then made his way back to the group. Martha was still climbing down and Gunn was just explaining where Angel was when he caught sight of Martha properly for the first time.

"Aww _man!_ " he cried.

"What?" Martha was facing away from Angel as he stopped next to the Doctor, but he could practically hear glare.

"You were here before us," Gunn said accusingly.

"Yeah," Martha agreed, like Gunn might be very stupid. "Kidnapped."

"But _I_ wanted to be the first black person on the moon!"

Martha pulled her head back in surprise and she let out a burst of laughter. "Well, you can still be the first black _man_ on the moon, if that makes you feel better."

Dawning realization lit up Gunn's eyes. "Ohhh yeah!" He held out his hand to her importantly and said with a sophisticated air, "Charles Gunn, first black man on the moon. Pleased to meet your acquaintance."

Martha took it, matching his sophistication. "Martha Jones, first woman _ever_ on the moon. The pleasure is all mine. That is-" she glanced at the Doctor, "-this year _is_ before the hospital-Judoon incident, yeah?"

The Doctor nodded quickly in response. "Uh, yeah, yeah I guess it is."

Angel happened to catch the Doctor's eyes, and the Doctor smirked and nodded at the two humans. He mouthed the words, "They're both wrong," and shrugged pleasantly.

Angel shrugged back, a smile tugging at his mouth, and took half a step toward the group, interrupting the happy meeting. "Okay, great," he said. They still had a planet to save, after all. He jerked his thumb behind him, "There's a door back that way marked 'Storage Bay.' Think that's what we want?"

Martha turned around to look at who was speaking behind her and jumped backward so badly she slammed her shoulder into the ladder. Her hand covered her mouth like she was holding in a scream.

"And I wonder where our finned friends have got to?" the Doctor asked as he peered in the direction Angel was pointing. He turned back and spotted Martha. "Martha? Are you okay?"

Martha's jaw tightened and she nodded quickly, looking at the Doctor with wide eyes and then back at Angel. She slowly lowered her hand. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "Yeah, let's go find the storage area."

Angel and Gunn shared a bewildered look before Angel turned and led the way.

The storage bay turned out to be practically the _entire_ underdeck, housing everything from space shuttles to boxes to walls of odd-looking tools, and what appeared to be a shallow lake to store actual fish.

"Do you think they're cannibals?" Gunn asked trepidatiously, peering into the oddly-dark water as they passed.

"No more than you are for eating other mammals," the Doctor said.

"Okay," Gunn said, rubbing his stomach, "that's the best argument for vegetarianism I've heard yet."

"And yet oddly," Angel said as he peered around a tower of crates, "it makes me feel like _less_ of a cannibal."

"Angel's a vampire," Gunn said helpfully to Martha.

"Yeah," Martha said again in the same clipped tone. "Yeah he is. You don't say."

Angel glanced back at her curiously. _That_ was a new reaction.

"You're not surprised," Gunn observed astutely.

Martha tipped her forehead at the Doctor. "Travel with him for a bit, you learn to just accept things." She paused and pointed at a door. "Do we know what's in here?" she asked. Angel shrugged and continued around another towering pallet of boxes. He heard Martha open the door.

"Found the blue box," Gunn said.

"Oh!" the Doctor said, spinning around. Angel also turned back to look and spotted the glowing white lettering of the TARDIS in the room on the other side of the door. Glowing tubes and black wires were attached to it in various places, and the walls blinked with computer lights and panels. In front of the TARDIS stood at least a dozen Bloflosuians, several of them holding heat guns, and looking temporarily startled out of action.

"Oh." The Doctor swayed back on his heels. "Right."

"Could have used some of those weapons now, eh, Doctor?" Angel said out of the corner of his mouth.

"We'll work something out," the Doctor said, raising his hand and waving at the fish.

They raised their weapons and Martha slammed the door. The sound of lasers _pshew-ed_ on the other side of the door and it turned red with heat.

"They're not fighters, right?" Angel said, pushing his way forward. "Gunn and I could probably take them out as they come through the door." He winced at the heat radiating off the door and took a step back. Maybe after it cooled down, though.

Behind him, Angel heard a crash as Gunn shifted boxes. "Right, they'll bottleneck," Gunn agreed. "Angel and I can flank the door until they're thinned out enough, then the Doctor and Martha can run in there and get the time box thing."

"What? No!" The Doctor suddenly appeared beside Angel. "You can't just kill them," he said in a loud whisper.

"Why not?" Angel retorted. "They're going to kill my planet."

"They practically children!" The Doctor moved between Angel and the door. "Also, we don't do that."

" _They're_ shooting to kill," Angel argued. " _Us_."

"Doesn't that just make us the better person?" the Doctor said. "We can get a shuttle. Go back to Earth."

"What about the TARDIS?" Martha asked. "Getting that back will still be a problem once the other modulator's destroyed. Probably more so."

The Doctor held up a finger. "Martha! That's not helping."

"At least you left the regulator on Earth, right? They can't move forward without it."

"Well..." the Doctor blinked at Martha.

"That would have made sense," she pointed out.

"I had to save you! And! And!" The Doctor jumped and turned toward the door. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the regulator. "And I brought the regulator! Which means they can't shoot us. They might damage it."

"But you're not going to _give_ it to them," Angel said pointedly.

"No. No, no. Certainly not." The Doctor backed away from the door, and waved for Martha to stand behind him. "I have a plan."

"Really?" asked Martha.

"Well, more of a plan in process," the Doctor admitted.

Gunn edged up next to Angel. "I think he's gonna give it to them. The regulator, I mean; not violence, like the situation seems to definitely call for."

Angel nodded in disapproving agreement.

"If it comes to it, yes," the Doctor snapped. "We're not killing anyone!"

Angel noticed Martha staring at him particularly intensely as he folded his arms across his chest. He gave a little shrug with one shoulder. "I hope you're right."

"Angel," Gunn said, eyeing the Doctor with new suspicion. "He's siding with the aliens."

"He's siding with everyone," Angel corrected. "Which usually means that everyone loses." Angel took a few steps forward. "You can't save them all, you know."

The Doctor clenched his jaw. "I can try," he growled.

Martha pushed her way around the Doctor and stepped up to Angel. "Whatever you're thinking," she said, looking him in the eye, "no."

Angel narrowed his eyes at her in a way that usually made humans back down, but Martha remained resolute. After a moment, Angel shifted his attention back to the Doctor; he had no quarrel with the girl, just who she was siding with.

"Alright," Angel said quietly, preparing himself for what he was about to do. He opened his mouth to speak again when Gunn's strong arm shot out from the side of Angel's vision right into the Doctor's jaw. The Doctor went sprawling to the ground, and as Angel and Martha looked on in shock, Gunn went and retrieved the regulator from the ground where it had rolled away.

"Gunn!" Angel protested. "I was _just_ about to do that!"

"Save it for the fish," Gunn said, tucking the regulator into his own pocket. "I say we are not risking Earth for a bunch of aliens. And I will include you if you keep getting in the way," he told the Doctor as picked himself off of the floor.

"He is _not_ getting in the way," Martha cried, marching angrily up to Gunn. He towered over her, but she didn't seem to notice. "He is _saving your lives_. Do you _really_ think you can take a room full of armed aliens with your fists?"

Gunn rolled a shoulder. "I've seen worse odds. And I don't need to sit around waiting for some alien to save my life. I've been saving my own life since I was a kid. Angel?" Gunn nodded at the door, "You take left, I'll take right?"

"Works for me," Angel agreed, privately wishing that they had weapons of some sort. He nodded his head toward the Doctor. "We'll try to just knock them out, if it makes you feel better. You might want to get out of the way."

The Doctor looked desperately between the door, which was now rattling as the aliens began to test the safety of the temperature, and the two men that he'd brought with him. "They're not even fighters! If we could all just take a few minutes to stop being so determined to kill each other, maybe we can come to a solution."

"And this solution involves not blowing up the Earth." Gunn said, his arms crossed.

"Exactly!" the Doctor said. "They can't all be crazy - well, they _are_ graduate students, which does not typically lead to mental health - but they're not suicidal. And they're not heartless. The only question is: Are you?"

"Actually, my heart doesn't beat," Angel pointed out.

The Doctor refocused on Angel, his eyes expressing equal parts rage and sorrow. "But you are capable of so much more, Angel! I know you are. Please," he said, his voice wavering, "don't. I'm asking you as a friend. _Trust_ me."

Angel looked at the Doctor and met his eyes. Something in the region of Angel's stomach lurched. It wasn't just the heartbreak or the grief or the underlying terror in that unfathomably deep gaze that made him pause, nor was it just how achingly familiar all those emotions were to Angel...

It was the grief part of it. It was the kind of grief that not only mourns for loss of life, but that mourns how it's one more life on your particular hands. One more life to add to the pile of guilt, and one extra dose of guilt for the fact that guilt is even a factor when it comes to saving lives.

It was the kind of look that could only be given from personal experience. Who _was_ this guy?

Shaking himself slightly, Angel opened his mouth to reply, but Gunn spoke first.

"It's not personal, man. It's business." And he shouldered past the Doctor to stand at the ready to the right of the door, waiting for the aliens to come spilling out.

Angel stepped forward as well.

"Please," the Doctor said, reaching up and gripping Angel's wrist as he passed.

Angel looked at him. The pleading again. The grief.

"Hey," Angel said, his voice softening, "if there were another way, I'd take it. We don't want blood for its own sake - we just want to save the earth more." He jerked his arm free of the Doctor's grasp and took up his post on the left side of the door.

Angel tensed, preparing to dodge the first shot. There was a hiss and a bit of something that looked like steam escaping from the crack of the door, and Gunn flung the door open the rest of the way.

Every single one of the Bloflosus were on the floor, unconscious.

"What the-?" Gunn asked. He took a trepedacious step into the room.

Angel was not far behind, squeezing into the room behind Gunn. He nudged one of the fish-like aliens with his toe. It didn't react, though its gills were moving in an autonomous breathing motion. It didn't have eyelids, but there was some kind of cloudy, protective membrane covering the eyes like eyelids might. Angel could still see the pupils under the membrane, staring unseeingly back at him. He didn't mind admitting to being a little creeped out.

"They're unconscious," Gunn said, bewildered. "How?"

"Because while you boys were arguing, I went and reversed the air filtration system in that room and gave the fans a bit of a boost." Martha appeared behind them, and Angel and Gunn both turned. She gave a self-satisfied shrug and a smirk. "Made them breathe their own expiratory gasses for a bit. They'll be fine and will probably wake up pretty soon - they haven't had much time for it to really get in their system. Shall we?" And she pushed between Angel and Gunn's stunned expressions, picking her way carefully around the aliens' bodies toward the TARDIS.

"Atta girl, Martha!" the Doctor said, grinning widely through the bruise forming on his jaw as he pushed himself up off the ground. "Atta girl." And he, too, dashed past Angel and Gunn with hardly a glance.

"Doctor," Martha asked from across the room as she began fingering the wires attached to the TARDIS, "these are alright to just rip out, yeah? I mean, they won't overload or short anything we need, will they?"

"Nah, why do you ask that?" the Doctor replied. "Anyway, don't bother, they'll disconnect when we take off. Right, everyone in, come on."

Angel and Gunn shared one last look - a slight disappointment that felt oddly like they'd been chastised - before they made their way toward the blue police box.

The first Bloflosu stirred before they were even halfway across the room. They picked up their pace to a light jog, leaping lightly over the bodies. Angel reached the TARDIS quickly and paused in the doorway to watch Gunn's progress.

Angel saw it just before it happened, but it was already too late. One of the bigger Bloflosus was waiting for Gunn, quietly, feigning unconsciousness. Its size must have kept it from going under as quickly as the others, and it was facing the TARDIS, so they couldn't have seen that it was awake from the door, the membrane over its clear gold eyes still retracted.

Gunn had leapt over it, was midair, and then down perfectly like a cat springing into his next forward motion when the fin-like arm of the Bloflosu swept out and grabbed Gunn's ankle. He came crashing down on top of one of the other Bloflosus, which woke with a startled gasp. Before Angel had made it two steps, the big Bloflosu had locked one arm around Gunn's neck and was pressing its heat laser to Gunn's temple, even while forcing him back up to a standing position.

"Stop," it demanded, and Angel suddenly recognized the fish as Maz, the leader of the trio that had cornered them in the parking lot.

Angel had made it several steps forward, but he stopped and raised his hands slowly in surrender. He glanced back at the TARDIS. Martha was in the doorway and the Doctor just in front of her, both of their hands raised as well.

"Give us the regulator," Maz demanded. The alien that Gunn had fallen on was getting up now, and several others were groggily sitting up, too. "Or I pull the trigger."

"Alright, okay," the Doctor said behind Angel, inching his way forward. "We're all civilized species here."

Angel wanted to contest this notion, but he thought better of it.

"Where is the regulator?" Maz asked.

"The what? Oh right, the regulator! Yes, well, I will tell you where it is, I really will, just first a question, please, one question. Or two, there might be two questions. Well, let's say several just to-"

"The _regulator!_ " Maz yelled. Gunn winced.

"Yes, okay," the Doctor agreed, "it's just that I could _find_ you another planet, a perfectly good planet, to do your experiment on. Think about it: you could write your thesis - it is _your_ thesis, right, _your_ particular attempt to prove this theory? Only you've got that important-looking badge on - anyway, you could write your thesis and you wouldn't be committing genocide! I think that sounds like a good deal, personally."

"It _must_ be done here," Maz replied. "The land-to-water mass ratio is ideal, the atmospheric gasses precisely what we need, and the inhabitants of this world are classified as non-intelligent. No genocide will occur. Give. Us. The regulator."

At least a half of the fish were standing now, most of them woozily and without weapons. Angel glanced down at the Bloflosu at his feet that was still unconscious. He could snatch the Bloflosu's weapon and aim it quickly enough, but did it require any kind of warm up? Alien safety release?

" _Actually_ , I think you'll find that according to the intergalactic intelligence classifi-Okayokayokay!" Maz had flicked a switch on the side of the gun and it made a powering up sort of whirring sound. So there was Angel's answer. He glanced back down, locating the switch before he'd have to use it.

"You just have to promise me that you'll let him go if we give it to you."

"Oh, of course," Maz replied. "We will let you _all_ go. After the experiment runs successfully, of course."

"That's…" the Doctor took a deep breath. "Fine, that's fine. So. We have a deal? I tell you where the regulator is, and you let the human go safely?"

"Doctor," Angel muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Angel, I am a bit busy at the moment. As you can see, I'm dealing with a horde of amateur scientists who are terrified of getting bad grades at school..."

"Doctor," Angel growled, "the _planet_."

"Yes, yes, the planet," the Doctor agreed, leaning in toward Angel confidentially. "You know, this is quite nice, really. Usually it's some sort of organized military operation bent on destroying Earth. It's a lovely change, just your normal average citizens, don't you think?"

Angel had to keep from rolling his eyes. "And you're just going to _let_ them have the regulator, with no guarantee they'll let Gunn go and us being outnumbered. Doctor, we need leverage. An escape plan."

"Quite so, Angel, quite so. Do you know, I _really_ tire of asking you to _please_ not shoot anyone. Violence is not the answer, here."

Angel frowned at the Doctor for a moment. He didn't even have the gun yet. How…?

Oh.

Angel's frown flickered into a quick smirk before he schooled his face into something more neutral. "Yeah, fine," he said shortly. "I heard you."

Maz, watching the exchange with a close wariness, adjusted her grip on her gun. "Well? Where is it?"

The Doctor gave a resigned sigh and nodded toward Gunn. "In his jacket pocket."

One of the nearby Bloflosus quickly began rummaging through Gunn's jacket, to his loud protests, and while its body was blocking Maz's view, Angel leaned down and picked up the gun beside him in one smooth motion.

"Here!" the Bloflosu cried in triumph as it found the regulator.

"The human, please," the Doctor said quickly. There was a scuffle as Bloflosus that were awake and up - now nearly all of them - crowded around to see the regulator, so for a tense moment, they couldn't tell where Gunn was or what was happening. The Bloflosu at Angel's feet stirred, and Angel stepped away from it, fingering the safety switch for when Gunn was out of harm's way. Beside him, the Doctor motioned for Martha to get back into the TARDIS.

"Hey!" One of the Bloflosus had spotted Martha's retreat and then noticed the gun at Angel's side. He pointed his fin-like arm at them, shouting, "Hey, hey, hey!"

Confused attention turned toward them and Angel flicked the safety switch. The gun whirred to life as he took aim and shot.

His aim was perfect and the computer screen exploded into showers of highly distracting sparks. Several laser shots came their way, one one of which came close enough that Angel actually had to dodge. Gunn came pelting out of the crowd, sans jacket, toward them.

"Go," Angel shoved the Doctor toward the door, taking aim again, this time at the tank on the other side of the room. The glass shattered under Angel's fire and dozens of gallons of water and what looked like seaweed crashed to the floor. Another few shots and some of the venting ducts came booming down from the ceiling.

And the Bloflosus - amateur scientists without military organization and leadership - were in complete chaos. A few laser shots were directed at Gunn and Angel as they retreated toward the TARDIS, and one hit the ship itself, but it only left a scorch mark in the blue paint. Angel shot at a few more random objects before stepping inside the ship and slamming the door.

"Got everyone?" the Doctor shouted from near the center console. "Right, let's go! Hold on!" He threw a lever and the ship lurched into action. Martha had grabbed hold of something even before the warning. Angel, who had ridden once on this ship just a few hours before, knew to take the warning seriously and quickly gripped the railing along the ramp to the door. Poor Gunn had to go through his inaugural time-and-spaceship launch on his own, and was thrown into the console before he even had time to shout in surprise.

"Sorry!" the Doctor yelled from the other side of the console where he was adjusting various dials and knobs.

"You never said sorry to me," Angel complained.

"Nor me," Martha added.

"Didn't I?" The Doctor swung around to look at the screen. "How rude of me. Now. Martha, you didn't happen to hear where this alternate modulator has been relocated to, did you?"

"Yeah, there's a-er, a school, I think. Might be a university. Less than a kilometer from the old one."

"There are plenty of both in Los Angeles," Angel said, feeling steady enough to let go of the railing and move further into the room. "Any clues?"

Martha shrugged. "It sounded religious."

"Also got plenty of that," Gunn said.

"It's good enough," the Doctor said, typing and reading his screen while talking. "I can search for EMF signals at Bloflosuian standard frequencies in small areas. One circular kilometer won't slow us down much."

Gunn sidled up to Angel and tugged on his sleeve as he looked around at the room. "Did you know it was bigger inside?"

"Yup," Angel replied. "It's a thing."

"Oh, right. Cool."

"And one more thing," Martha continued. "It didn't mean much to me, but it sounded like it could be important, so here goes." Martha took a deep breath, looking like she was preparing to recite a monologue. "Because the explosion took all the biocrymorphic fuel they had left, they're sending down their hydrophrenitol reserves instead, which - so they say - should work just as well."

The Doctor looked up at Martha suddenly, one eyebrow raised. "Really? That's interesting."

"Good interesting or bad interesting?" Gunn asked.

The Doctor look at him and his eyebrow relaxed. "Neutral," he replied. "Neither. Negligible. So! They'll have teleported the regulator down there by now. What say we drop off our guests and then Martha and I can go steal the regulator again?"

"Hell no," Angel and Gunn said together.

"Our town. Our planet. We're going," Angel said in a final tone.

"Yes, yes, alright, fine," the Doctor agreed, holding up a hand. "But we're just going to steal the regulator back. This mission does not include a massacre."

"It does if-" Gunn started to say, but the Doctor interrupted him, moving around the console to face him properly.

"-It _doesn't_. And if it does, _I_ will decide that. You don't get to have that on your shoulders. Not today, not ever. I don't know you very well yet, Charles Gunn, but I do know that you are way too good for that, and we are _done_ talking about this." The Doctor glanced at Angel to include him when he said, "Agreed?"

There was a short moment of silence, and then both Angel and Gunn nodded shortly.

"Agreed," Angel said, watching the Doctor carefully. Angel did agree: Gunn was too good for that. But Angel wasn't. Surely, the Doctor would have figured that out about him by now. But did this mean that the Doctor even put himself below Angel in terms of who was _not_ too good to have more blood on his hands?

"Sure," Gunn said, sounding far more reluctant and like he wasn't sure if he'd just been patronized or not.

"Good." The Doctor glanced between Gunn and Angel one last time to make sure it was, indeed, good, and then went back to his console. "We're landing. Everyone hold on."


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor stuck his head out the TARDIS door and waved his new and somewhat hastily constructed EMF reader at a pack of students walking down a sidewalk in front of a large brick building. Roberts Hall, according to the large lettering across the doorways. He wondered who Roberts was. Maybe he could go find out. Any guy who got a hall in a college couldn't be all bad, right? Then again, no one had dedicated any halls to the Doctor, and he wasn't that bad.

The reader whirred weazily in his hand in a general direction that was east-ish, away from the college. The Doctor hit the device on the side with his hand, just in case that jarred the sensor more awake, but the reading persisted. Wrong school, then. It had been a bit of a long shot anyway.

"Anything?" Angel asked, standing just inside the TARDIS doors and looking like he was going to bolt out of the TARDIS if this took any longer.

Maybe "Doctor Hall" would be a bit confusing. Or a little too on the nose?

"Ehhhh..." the Doctor pushed his hair back with his right hand and continued to wave the EMF detector with his left, just in case. It buzzed quietly. "Nope." But it did significantly shrink the search zone. He had gotten that much right with the landing. They were getting close, and he was still lacking a plan.

Angel asked a question as the Doctor wandered a bit further out. Something disapproving.

"Uh-huh," the Doctor said, eyeing the screen on the console. Generally east-ish… The question being if they should walk it or take the TARDIS school-to-school in an east-ish direction. The reader would give him more immediate feedback, and since the buzzing frequency was .38 megaherz in Bloflosuian standard waves, given the density of Los Angeles' atmosphere and the range of potential distance covered, multiplied by the speed of-

Angel growled something, still lingering behind the Doctor near the TARDIS door.

Subtracting, of course, interruptive vampires.

In short, the location of the backup modulator was probably within walking distance. They would go on foot, and that would give the Doctor time to calculate other very important things.

Like this problem with the fuel.

If the Bloflosuians had replaced the original fuel type with hydrophrenitol, they could limit the potential fallout by reducing the injection speed. Good. Except they had limited time, limited resources to change out the injection tubes, and limited reason to want to stop bigger explosions from happening if someone foiled their evil plan. Which is what would happen. Last time he had stolen the regulator it had blown the machine with a...what? Nine meter radius? The new fuel source would exponentially increase the blast radius to the tune of...

" _It doesn't_?" Angel gripped the Doctor's shoulder and pulled him around until he was blinking at the very upset vampire. Of course, there was a lot to be upset about. How were they going to evacuate everyone within a quarter kilometer radius? Angel snarled.

What had the question been?

"Doesn't what?" the Doctor asked, and ducked. Or, tried to duck before Angel tightened the grip on his shoulder and slammed him against the TARDIS. "Watch it!"

"Does. That. _Stupid_. Buzzing thing. WORK?"

"Of course it does. You don't have to shout."

"Doctor," Martha said gently, stepping so close to the two of them that he suspected she might be considering inserting herself between himself and Angel, which was not terribly efficient use of space. All this sidewalk, did they _have_ to all occupy the same spot? At least Gunn wasn't joining in. "Doctor, are we at least close to finding it?"

"Very. It's thataway." Probably right under where those clouds were gathering. Just a guess. Ooh! Clouds. He was a genius. "But then once we get there we've got to evacuate the surrounding area."

"Evacuate?" Martha asked. "We didn't have to evacuate last time."

"Oh yes, yes, just a precaution," the Doctor replied, squinting at the readings on the screen as he led them forward. Thirty degrees and a half a kilometer north, the concentration of Bloflosuian EMF signals seemed a bit more dense. Okay, so it was north-ish east-ish, and yes: right under that growing cloud. The Doctor broke into a jog. "They're more desperate this time, aren't they? Just to be safe. Come on!"

He led them at a steady run down the sidewalks of Los Angeles, Martha helpfully shouting at people to get out of the way when the Doctor failed to notice them. This, too, was why he kept companions. The readings on the EMF device condensed the closer they got, and by the time it looked like a bright, solid sun on the Doctor's tiny screen, they were standing in front of a large rectangular building of yellow brick that sat back on a sad-looking lawn of dying yellow grass. Behind it stretched a slightly less sad-looking grass playing field lined with metal bleachers. A growl of thunder sounded above them, the wind suddenly picking up, making the lone flag clang mournfully against the pole.

"Okay," he said, taking stock of their surroundings. Martha and Gunn trailed up behind him, wheezing in deep gasps.

"This is it?" Angel asked from the Doctor's other side, looking about as winded as if he'd just stood up from the couch.

"Yes, well, about it. Within a certain… Yes. Should be in that building." The Doctor spun around, taking in the surrounding neighborhoods. "Gunn, Martha, those houses," he pointed at the houses across the street, "are in the blast range if something goes wrong."

"And when _don't_ things go wrong," Gunn said.

"Exactly. Not as optimistic as possible, but accurate."

"So we're evacuating," said Martha. She held out her hand expectantly, but what she was expecting, the Doctor had no idea. He stared at her questioningly, so she prompted, "Psychic paper. People aren't going to leave because we asked nicely."

"Right. Good plan." The Doctor handed over the wallet. "Angel and I will take care of clearing out the inside of the building."

"You don't have an umbrella in there, too, do you?" Martha asked, a particularly strong gust of wind whipping at them.

"Oh _no!_ " the Doctor said, slapping his palm to his forehead apologetically. "It's in my other coat."

"You have another coat?"

"Hey," Angel interrupted. "Time crunch, here. Good luck, guys," he told them, already moving toward the entrance, leaving the Doctor little choice but to follow.

"So," Angel said when they reached the front stairs, taking the steps two at a time, "the blast radius is bigger than before. How much time do you need to get out?"

The Doctor tugged one of the glass doors open and waved Angel in hurriedly as a few fat drops of rain began to fall from the sky. "However long it takes to drag a team of students past that first row of houses," he said. "How fast can you run?" Also, how good was he at leading misguided students away from a blast range? The Doctor had never actually seen Angel run from a fight and, in his optimism, he'd forgotten to worry about that point until just now.

Now he was finding it a very distracting worry. Far more distracting than if the left hallway really was the better one to take, since Angel seemed to have dashed down it at random. "You _do_ know how to run, right?"

"We _are_ running."

"Right, right. But _away_. Past the first row of houses. You'll get the hang of it. Sure you will. Why wouldn't you?"

"What the _hell_ are you talking about?" Angel asked, stopping suddenly, sniffing the air, and directing them down a right turn at a run again. "Look, I'll follow you out as far as I can, but I gotta be honest: I might not make it."

It was worse than the Doctor thought: Angel didn't even get the order of their retreat right. "What? No!" he sputtered.

"You said it yourself," Angel said, slowing to a jog as they came to another intersection and considering each option briefly before choosing the left one. "Well, you _lied_ about it yourself. The blast zone is bigger than last time. I've got the best chance of getting out. So I'll give you a headstart, smash the regulator, and follow you out." He said this like it was the obvious plan they'd agreed on earlier.

The Doctor snapped his gaping jaw shut and grabbed Angel's arm, slowing them again. A long row of grey lockers stretched down the right side of the hall and a row of windows on the left. Outside, hail started to rap loudly against the glass. "You can't smash the regulator! It has to be removed. Delicately. Which is why _I'll_ be giving _you_ a headstart."

Angel let out a bark of laughter, but then looked at the Doctor like they he suddenly realized they'd been speaking different languages the entire conversation. "N-no," he said. "I can't let you do that. I'll take it out - 'delicately' -" Angel said this as if he didn't believe in delicacy, "and _you_ run."

The Doctor shot a quick look out the window and noted that the hail was now coming down in balls the size of tangerines. He really didn't have time to argue about this. "Great!" he said, trying a different tactic, "I'll walk you through it. Ready?"

"Explain it on the way," Angel said, starting off down the hall again, the Doctor close in stride.

"First you have to disable the atmospheric amplifier. It should be somewhere near the power source, and if you get that part wrong, it will start hailing chunks of ice the size of cars." The Doctor pulled Angel down the next hallway to the right. "And then you have to remove the bottom armour plating, making sure not to disrupt the magnetic fields. Okay?"

"Amplifier near the power source. Bottom armour plating," Angel repeated.

"Right. And then you should be able to see the regulator, and this is important: when you remove it, you have to be sure that you pull it out at the end of a third generation cycle." He shot a look across at Angel as they ran down another hall. "Now admit it, you have no idea what I'm talking about!"

" _Fine_ ," Angel agreed, slowing down as something caught his attention-either a sound of a smell that the Doctor couldn't sense. They stopped in the middle of a T-intersection, their options being either straight or right. "But what's the alternative?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. " _I'm_ going to do it. Since I know how. And _you_ are going to make sure our troublesome grad students are out of the blast range."

"And you?"

"I am going to remove the regulator." How many times was he going to explain this particular detail?

" _No_ ," Angel sighed sharply. "The _blast_ , Doctor," he said as if reminding him about this imminent part of the scheme. There was some sort of _clang_ down the hall to the right, and Angel and the Doctor began to move toward it. "You can't get out in time."

"I'll run fast," the Doctor told him, ignoring any calculations that he may be aware of that noted that he was physically incapable of running fast enough.

"You'll die."

They had almost passed a set of double doors with frosted glass windows on the left when they heard another _clang_ , drawing their attention briefly away from the conversation as they went up to the doors to investigate. Figures crosscrossed on other side of the glass and voices echoed with sounds of dragging metal equipment and electronic _beeps_ and _buzzes_. Lettering above the doors labeled it "Woodrow Wilson Gym," which seemed like an excellent place for a backup atmospheric modulator and its crew to be, even without all the other telling signs that they'd found the right place.

The Doctor pressed a hand through his hair, considering the frosted glass, the regulator on the other side, and the vampire who didn't quite get that this was the way that things had worked out.

That was hard to get sometimes: the way things worked out. Angel didn't know it yet, but he'd taught the Doctor something about that. About endings and beginnings and how one becomes the other. It hadn't happened for Angel yet, but that didn't mean that Angel didn't already know the things he was going to say that he believed, or lived by the beliefs that he would teach through example. So the Doctor grinned at Angel - an actual smile that he felt, not one that was meant to disarm or distract, although those things often happened at the same time anyway - and held out his hand. "In that case, I'm glad I met you before I died."

Angel stared at the hand, a stunned expression on his face. He swallowed, and the expression became more painfully puzzled, like working out a moral dilemma.

"Listen," the Doctor continued, "you'll meet me again and you can be angry about me being a time traveler and confusing you, how's that?"

"No, that's not it," Angel said, still looking like he was trying to work something out.

The Doctor huffed out a breath and bounced on his toes. He shoved his hand into his coat pocket unshaken. "Well, tell me when you work it out." He set his left hand on the door handle. "On three. One. Two."

Angel grabbed the Doctor's wrist to keep him from opening the door. "Doctor."

Yes, good job, Angel, that was his name. Planet to save? Now?

Angel's cool grip tightened slightly. "Look, it's just that...I'm not used to letting someone else be the hero."

Would this vampire ever stop surprising him? Even at the last, he had to go and say a thing like that.

Before Angel could protest, the Doctor grabbed him into a one-armed hug (his other wrist still being held tightly at the door).

 _A whole stack of memories never equal one little hope_.

Who said that? Charles somebody. Schulz. Great human being. The Doctor had hugged him, too.

He abruptly shoved Angel away. "Save those kids," he said, nodding his head toward the door, "that'll make you a hero in my book."

Looking like he was trying to get his bearings again in a reality where he was not suddenly in the embrace of a strange alien man, Angel shook himself slightly, finally letting go of the Doctor's wrist. "Right, like they're going to listen this time. I think I'll have to violence them out."

The Doctor inclined his head toward Angel. "Just to scare them," he agreed. "Make sure they can run."

Angel nodded, a small smile twisting at the corner of his mouth. "I can do that. How much time do I have?"

"Right." The Doctor ran through the calculations in his head again. "I'd say thirty seconds of running after I pull the regulator out. To get past the first row of houses that Gunn and Martha are evacuating I'll give you, what? Five minute head start enough?"

"That'll work," Angel agreed. "Wait here until I clear the room."

The Doctor nodded. "Thank you, Angel."

The other corner of Angel's mouth twitched up, a little bit sadly, and he held out a hand.

"Oh, come on, now, don't get sentimental on me," the Doctor said, taking Angel's hand. "I regenerate when I die, remember? Same me, new face." Or close enough.

Angel's eyes narrowed ever so slightly in knowing scrutiny. "Do you get a new face if your body in in pieces?"

That was a good question. Arguably, if he died quickly, the regenerative energy would feed off of the explosion...he might make a bigger explosion.

So instead of answering, the Doctor grinned wider. "Let's go save the world, Angel."

* * *

Angel's vision refocused slightly and became sharper, his hearing a bit more acute, his sense of smell (unfortunately, this time), picking up on the subtler aromas of ocean fish, dry teenaged sweat, and the rubber of sporting balls. He tongued his sharp fangs briefly like running a thumb along a blade, then he shifted his weight back and kicked in his side of the double gym doors with a fantastic _bang_ that echoed dully in the basketball court.

The handful of Bloflosu fish people that were furiously starting up the equipment near the far end - Angel counted eight of the piscine students - jumped at the noise. None of them seemed to be holding those heat ray laser things. Scanning the room, he spotted the heat guns lying against the bleachers to his right. He would have to keep the students from reaching them if he wanted to keep the fight as short and sweet as possible.

He did wish that he had brought the gun that he'd stolen on the TARDIS. But it would have been a suspicious thing to be seen carrying around various L.A. school campuses, and he wouldn't be needing it anyway if his mission was to actually save the monsters trying to destroy his planet in the name of science.

If Angel thought of it as a dying man's last wish, that made it a much easier mission to stomach.

Wind and rain and hail pounded on the roof. A lightning flash and thundercrack happened simultaneously, leaving Angel's ears ringing.

"Hey!" Angel called as he stalked toward them. "Someone's called in a bomb threat."

The students drifted closer together, looking from Angel and back to their fellow group members for an explanation. Two larger, silver Bloflosu eyed the heat guns in the corner as the fish Angel now recognized as Maz shoved her way to the front.

"And that means class gets out _early_ today!" Angel said, giving them a look of mock celebratory joy that he was well aware looked nothing less than psychotically insane with his vampire visage. "A.k.a…. You've got about ten seconds to book it, or I start pulling off fins."

"The atmospheric modulator is already started," Maz said victoriously, face crinkling in a way that looked like an attempt at a grin. The fluorescent overhead lights glinted off her reddish scales and Maz waved a fingered fin at the modulator rumbling with life. "There's nothing you can do."

As if to prove her point, a football-sized piece of hail broke through one of the windows on an upbounce, glass shattering everywhere and the sound of the storm doubling through the opening.

"Sure there is," Angel grinned, swinging his arms in a warming up sort of way as he moved forward. "Did you not hear the part about the ass-kicking? Well," he made a show of considering their huge fish bodies, "not that you guys really have 'asses,' per se… But raise your fins, who else here has preternatural strength and a couple hundred years' combat experience?"

The Bloflosus glanced at each other nervously with giant, dark, unblinking eyes. Maz surreptitiously looked at the heat guns by the bleachers, but Angel was mere yards away from them, now.

"Ah-ah," he sang, waving a finger. "I've got super-speed, too." He cracked several knuckles in his fist. "So we figure somewhere beyond the first row of houses out front is non-lethal blast range. Those of you who want to do the smart thing should get a move on. Otherwise…" Angel shrugged. "Well, I've never actually fought a fish before. It'll be a good learning experience for me."

"This is our _careers_ on the line," Maz said, seething through her fish lips. "We will not give up so easily."

The fish just behind her and to her left snorted derisively. "You are _crazy_ ," he said, and turned to look at Angel. "And you're insane. I'm going to go see if I can find some extra credit and get a pass for this course." He turned and marched out the back door for the gym.

Well, that was easy. Seven to go.

"Fine, undergrad," Maz shouted after him. "But I'm not giving you any credit in the peer evaluations!" She turned to the others and demanded, "Well? It's seven against one. Let's get him! For Bloflosu!"

Maz charged forward, and her courage was enough to jolt the two large silver classmates into flowing her. The others joined in a moment later, spurred on by the outnumbering-Angel-odds, and they charged in a glinting wave of scales. Angel grinned and ran to meet them.

The Bloflosu were taller than Angel by about half and nearly twice as wide, and had the same surprising strength of fish freshly pulled out of a lake; all tensed muscle and slippery scales that his fists glanced off of if he hit them at the slightest angle.

Angel jumped over Maz, just clearing her smooth head before she reached him, and kicked the silver Bloflosu to her right on his way down, hoping to take out the largest fighters before they could sort out some strategy and overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

Without looking to see how his kick had landed, Angel lept for the silver Bloflosu to the left, landing on his back and riding him to the ground. The Bloflosu rolled, taking advantage of his own weight and size, trying to crush Angel.

"I've got him," the fish said, wrapping his long, spindly fingers around Angel's left wrist and leaning against Angel's chest.

Angel jerked his knee up and into the fish's side. His knee glanced off of the silver scales, but it didn't matter. On the way back down, Angel aimed his foot at the Bloflosu's awkwardly stiff knee that he was using to brace himself as he held Angel down. Support gone, the Bloflosu lost his balance and grip, and Angel slipped from under the Bloflosu. With a bit of quick maneuvering, Angel pushed himself on top, trying to find a good grip on the slippery scales. What had he said? Ripping off fins? Angel thought he'd be lucky to scrape off a scale.

Another brave student rushed toward Angel, scales greenish yellow in the flourescent light of the gym. Close behind it (Angel still had a hard time telling gender without hearing their voices), three others flanked. Perfect.

When the Bloflosu in front was just a step away from reaching Angel, he shot upward, aiming his shoulder about where the sternum would be on a human (Angel didn't know fish anatomy, much less Bloflosu anatomy, but he assumed that if they had ribs, they probably had a sternum, and it was an excellent place of leverage in these situations). The impact made a loud _thud_ , and the giant fish was thrown backward into its classmates. They went down like bowling pins, and when they stood again, all four made a break for the exit at the back of the gym.

Angel wove through the rest of them easily, and it took one or two well-aimed blows to their sides or fins for the rest of them to start running. Maz stayed to the end, getting knocked away again and again only to come scrambling back. Finally, she was the only one left fighting, and he threw her over one of the consoles where she landed with a sickening _slap_ on the other side. The last fish was still stumbling away from Angel toward the door, terrified and tripping over its own feet.

"Doctor!" Angel called, rushing over to the console to see if Maz was conscious. The gym doors banged and the Doctor's pounding footsteps echoed nearer. Maz wasn't moving, but her gills still fluttered rhythmically. Stopping beside him, the Doctor peered over, too.

"Go on, make sure that one gets out," he said, jerking his head toward the other Bloflosu. "Good work."

Angel touched the Doctor's shoulder - in solidarity, support...he wasn't sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do when he was leaving someone to martyrdom. The Doctor nodded, pulling in a breath as he withdrew his sonic screwdriver, and headed for the biggest tower of equipment, which buzzed with activity.

Angel watched him for a second, willing himself to remember how it felt to let other people step in and do the right thing, to not care who got the cosmic tick marks in the Credit Column toward forgiveness…

Angel turned toward the last fish, who was throwing itself at the door. Angel broke into a jog, the fish scrambled in even more panic, and by the time the door was beginning to swing shut behind it, the chase had evolved into a full-on run.

The fish was much faster on legs than Angel had thought it would be. He tailed it down two halls before he was finally able to grab the dorsal fin and clumsily trip it at full speed. Together they fell and rolled, smashing into the grey metal lockers along the left wall. Angel was the first up and he jammed a knee into the alien's belly to hold it down.

"Don'tdon'tdon't!" the fish screamed, panicked. The voice was high and feminine, although that could have been from the terror. "Please! Please don't! I don't want to die!"

"That's funny," Angel replied, pressing his knee a little harder into her. "Neither do the humans you were trying to murder. What a coincidence."

"I'm sorry!" the fish sobbed. "I'll leave, I promise! I'll take the failing grade! I'll transfer to the philosophy department and write my thesis on the ethics of earthling laboratory testing! Whatever you want! Just let me go!"

 _Whatever you want_. Some of Angel's favorite words. He let up the pressure a little bit.

"Whatever I want?" he repeated in a low, threatening voice.

"Anything!" she squeaked.

Angel grinned.

* * *

The problem with regulators is that they're hugely important to the proper functioning of the piece of equipment which they regulate. Obviously.

So. When designing machines and placing their corresponding hugely important components in the schematics, should said components,

      a) Be placed in a highly accessible outer area where they can be repaired easily in case of malfunction  
          i) Taking into account the fact that malfunction is more likely to occur in highly accessible outer areas because of increased exposure to dust, bangs, jostles, spilled drinks, clumsy kicking feet, etc.

      b) Be placed in the central core of the machine to protect from the elements outlined in a.i., above

      c) Be given a special bullet- and shatterproof box with big Caution! This Is the Piece That Should Never Ever Break! labels and placed conveniently in the middle of the main console area

      d) All of the above

The secret answer is:

      e) The correct answer changes depending on how important it is that the Doctor break said component  
          i) Meaning that the correct answer in this case is actually c)

Sweating from the heat of the inner core of the modulator, bleeding from scratching his arm on a jutting screw, and swearing under his breath, the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the frame holding the regulator above him, thought screw-loosening thoughts, and pressed the button.

The screwdriver screeched, and a second later, the frame broke off from the structure and fell several inches toward the Doctor's upturned face. The wires that attached the regulator to the machine cut its fall short, but at least now it was within reach.

The Doctor stowed his sonic screwdriver back in his jacket pocket and took a deep breath, staring up at the blinking regulator; in many ways, the rhythmic heartbeat of this science experiment.

 _No_ , he told himself. _You don't get any time to contemplate your impending death. Just have it over with._

He stretched out an arm, snaking through the wires and coolant lines and metal bars of structure support. His fingers brushed the almost-hot bottom of the dangling regulator. He stretched a few more inches, his face and body twisting to give him that little extra length he needed. His fingers found grip, he waited for the telltale sound that the third generation cycle had ended, and he pulled.

Sparks bit his hand and an alarm sounded immediately. The Doctor withdrew his arm carefully, clutching the damned regulator.

He lay there for a second, looking at the piece of equipment. He could _try_ to make a run for it. Exit with his hearts and feet pounding.

Wriggling backwards out from under the modulator, the Doctor remembered the unconscious Maz. She likely hadn't woken up since he'd last seen her.

He had warned her. He didn't give second chances.

But, in the 0.067% chance he'd make it, how well could he live with the fact that he hadn't tried to save Maz, too?

His face slowly twisted in rage, damning the regulator (again), and those stupid, stupid students and their even stupider science experiment, and, on top of it all, how very stupid _he_ was to keep trying to save every last soul.

What choice did he have, from here on out?

Not much. There was no more out.

The Doctor threw the regulator against the painted cinderblock wall of the gym to his right, paint chipping, metal pieces flying. Outside, the storm was still raging. It wouldn't stop until the modulator blew.

The Doctor pushed himself up and peered over the console to look for Maz.

She was gone.

Behind him, the sound of a heat ray warming up whirred, and the Doctor turned around just as Maz fired.


	5. Chapter 5

"Homeroom," Angel said. "I get it. The room where you go home. Cute." He adjusted his grip on the fish's fin-arm. "Is anyone in there?" he asked.

"No," the fish-girl trembled.

"You know, if you're lying-"

"I'm not," she said quickly. "I'm not, I swear! The teleporters don't need operators and since we're the only ones that can use them, they don't need guards."

"Okay," Angel nodded. "Then let's go home." He pulled open the door to the classroom in front of them, a sign on which indicated that it was Mr. Sanchez's homeroom. Angel shoved the fish in first, and then told her to do whatever she needed to do to teleport them up to the station.

He let go of her trembling arm so that she could work and glanced around. Most of the desks had been pushed to the far walls to make room for the circular teleporter pad in the center of the room. Some sort of podium was attached to the pad with a screen and several buttons, and that was what the fish student beelined for. There was nothing else in the room that seemed alien - not even a forgotten heat gun.

Cursing to himself, Angel followed the fish to the teleporter pad and stood on it in case she got any ideas about leaving without him.

"Okay," she said after a moment. "We're ready."

Angel gripped her arm again. "Go."

The trip was...hazy. His eyesight blurred, his mental functions slowed, and later, Angel would have a hard time remembering exactly it felt like, except that it was still more comfortable than the jarring ride in the Doctor's ship.

When the haze cleared and Angel mentally shook away the cobweb feeling, they were standing in a small room with white walls lined with colorful bubbling tubes, a single window looking out on the moon's surface to the left, and a single computer panel to the right. A door was straight ahead, and the room was empty.

"Good," Angel said, pushing his captive off the teleportation pad and toward the panel. "What can that computer access?"

"Um, teleportation functions and a few main computer functions in case of an emergency."

"It's an emergency," Angel told her. "Shut down the experiment."

"No," she shook her head, which twisted her entire body back and forth with it, "I can't. That requires access to the science lab, and the entire control staff is there now. It-"

An alarm sounded, making the fish-girl jump.

"What's that?" Angel demanded.

"I- I don't know!" Angel squeezed her arm harder. "I _really_ don't!" she cried. "I'm just in charge of recording procedures!"

"Fine," Angel relaxed his grip, wishing he'd caught just about any other member of the group. Someone who _knew_ something. "Let's g-"

The door suddenly opened and three panicked students ran in. One of them was holding a gun, and Angel took advantage of their shock at finding him there. He let go of fish-girl and dashed for the gun, wresting it from the fish's grip before it had time to charge up.

"Alright, children," Angel said, feeling like things were finally starting to go his way, now that he had a weapon in his hand. He powered up the gun and put a finger on the trigger, backing away so that he had a clear shot of the entire terrified group. "How many of you were in the storage bay when we escaped?"

One of the fish tentatively raised a fin.

"Good. Tell your friends about how _I'm_ the one that will kill you since the crazy pacifist Time Lord isn't here to stop me."

The other three eyed the fish warily. It nodded.

Angel smiled. "So what's the alarm for?"

The fish who had raised a fin swallowed nervously. "The regulator's malfunctioning. The modulator's going to blow before we fix it, so we were sent to remote teleport the rest of our crew."

"You can do that without that circle thing?"

The fish hesitated. "Theoretically."

"Get the Time Lord, too," Angel told the fish. "If he's not the first one I see, I will shoot you, and I'll be damn happy to do it."

The fish glanced nervously between each other.

"Oh yeah," Angel added, "and you've got _about_ ten seconds."

* * *

 

The red heat of the gun flashed and then the Doctor's sight went hazy.

That was weird.

Of all the other times he'd died, his sight never went hazy first. Almost never. Not usually.

Okay, not _this_ kind of hazy.

And in regeneration his sight also didn't return quite so fast or his body hurt quite so little. He could still feel the oozing scratch on his right arm, but not the sizzling heat of the-

Oh, waitwaitwaitwait! This was- Was this? Yes!

The Doctor twisted around on his heel, scanning the teleportation room filled with confused and scared Bloflosuians and-

"Angel! Fantastic timing!"

Angel grinned at him; a self-satisfied sort of grin that had a bit of an evil twist that probably had something to do with the gun in his hands. Behind Angel, the Bloflosuians prodded at the teleportation controls. Something in the back of his mind considered this an important detail.

Angel shrugged. "I just couldn't let you be the heroic one. It's against my nature."

The teleport...

The Doctor laughed. "I'm happy to hand over the title."

There was only one Bloflosu left on Earth. One left for the others to bring up.

Angel grinned back. "Pretty sure I earned it way before you came along."

The Doctor started to laugh, but...but this teleportation unit could be used for large groups of people, which meant that it maintained a certain respect for spatial differences when transporting multiple people from similar base locations. Meaning, if one connected the dots, the Bloflosu at the controls were going to teleport Maz up onto the ship in the exact same spacial relationship to him as she'd had on the ground.

A relationship that had included pointing a thermoamplifier at his head.

Even as this horrifying thought registered, he sensed the air vibrate with the teleportation energy and heard the distinct warming-up _screeee_ of the thermoamplifier in question. He saw Angel's face shift from a grin to a frown, his eyes focusing on Maz and her gun behind the Doctor. She wouldn't even have to aim again. As soon as the _whir_ reached its pitch, she would press the trigger.

The Doctor jerked, turning to look behind him and instinctively ducking his head and shoulders in a belated attempt to get out of the way. Of course, this gave the vampire the clearest shot possible, and the Doctor would later berate himself for it, even though there was nothing else he could have done to stop it.

" _N-_ "

Angel's gun fired. Maz flopped onto the floor, her right eye burnt away, before the Doctor could even finish turning.

There were screams and blood, and people ran - some toward their leader, but most away from Angel's line of fire or wherever they felt most safe in the small room. The Doctor ran, too, and fell to his knees beside the dead Bloflosuian student, reaching for her head.

"You _killed_ her!" someone yelled, and several others echoed. Angel warned them to stay back, his gun powering up again. The situation felt remarkably similar to grabbing the regulator and deciding to pull.

The Doctor stood up. " _Stop_ ," he demanded of the room. "Everyone, _stop_."

No one stopped. Everyone was moving: Angel away from the door, students away from him, and one or two stupidly brave ones cautiously toward him.

"We're going," the Doctor shouted anyway. "We're going and you're going, and no one else is getting hurt." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, preparing the setting to give the teleporter coordinates.

"Unless you don't back the hell off," Angel growled, continuing to edge his way toward the Doctor.

The Doctor glared at him. "Just get on the teleporter, Angel," the Doctor said through gritted teeth, backing toward the circular pad himself.

Angel reached the teleportation pad first and stood on it like a military dictator on a dias, surveying his riotous subjects with cold dislike.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said to the crowd. "I'm sorry about Maz. I'm sorry you won't graduate." He reached the teleportation pad and stepped up next to Angel. "And I'm sorry you had to learn this lesson the hard way. But I hope you _have_ learned it, and I hope you take it back to your people. I hope you take it back and you tell it for generations and millennia to come: If you _ever_ try to pull a stunt like this again, if you ever even _think_ that _maybe_ , you can use this planet and its people for your own selfish scientific gains…" The Doctor glanced briefly at Angel. "...Then remember this: You will be stopped. And you have used up your second chance. He may be quicker to pull that trigger," he jerked his head at Angel, "but don't for one second think you're better off dealing with me."

The room was utterly silent, now, except for a few stifled terrified sobs. The Doctor let his message sink in an extra second and glanced at Angel again. This time, Angel returned the glance and nodded slightly.

"You have one hour to pack your things and leave," the Doctor told them. He raised his his sonic screwdriver at the computer panel and pressed the button, and the world became haze.


	6. Chapter 6

" _Real_ alien tech?" Wesley - Martha was briefly told was his name - asked excitedly as he took the heat gun that Angel offered him.

"Just like _Star Trek_ ," Angel replied. He gave a little shrug, "I guess."

"Tell me the part again where Gunn got chased down the driveway by a little old lady with a Swiffer," Cordelia said. "'Cause that's never _not_ going to be hilarious."

Gunn scowled at her from the couch in the middle of the Hyperion lobby, where he was inspecting a scrape on his arm for bits of gravel still embedded in it.

Martha laughed. "Yeah, and it's a shame because I think I was about to get a phone number from the guy across the way, too."

"You two were _supposed_ to be evacuating the area," the Doctor said from the stairs by the door, where he'd taken to sitting while the others had gotten everyone caught up. He was more taciturn and broody over there on the side than Martha had ever seen him. They had been told about how Angel had killed Maz, with the (Marth privately thought) good reason that she had been about two seconds from killing the Doctor, and it made Martha's insides twist both pleasantly and painfully at how much the Doctor regretted it. He mourned even the deaths of those who hated him. Who couldn't love that?

"We did," Gunn pointed out. "I think a little credit is in order for how well we convinced total strangers to run away from their homes in the middle of this decade's worst thunderstorm because of a bomb _threat_."

"Yeah," Martha said, "evacuation…not as easy as you'd think, even with the psychic paper. Still, I think we cleared out most of the people closest to the school. Any reports on casualties?"

Cordelia shrugged. "They're still trying to get the fires under control, according to the police scanner. There've been injuries, but no outright bodies found yet."

Martha looked back at the Doctor. "We should have stayed. I could have helped."

The Doctor shook his head, a motion more like trying to shake a bad feeling than a bad idea. "Nah. They've got plenty of help, and I think we've done enough here." He stood up, approaching her with hands pressed deep into his coat pockets. "We should probably be going."

Martha nodded in agreement. The Doctor crossed the rest of the space to Gunn and held out a hand. "Charles Gunn. It's been a pleasure."

"Yeah," Gunn agreed. "Explosions, nearly getting killed, alien fish people…" he took the Doctor's hand awkwardly with his left, since his right was bloody, having refused Martha's help once she determined that there was no serious damage. "Let's do it again."

"Just as soon as I recover from my head injuries," the Doctor said, rubbing his jaw. "Honestly, could you lot learn to disagree using your words?"

"Just as soon as you admit that we can spot an unreasonable psychopath when we see one," Gunn said.

The Doctor tilted his head, maybe mulling over the offer. "A work in progress, then."

Gunn nodded. "I like that."

The Doctor let go of Gunn's hand and then pivoted on his heel, nodding to Wesley and Cordelia as he turned. "You two...keep that one in line," he jerked his head at Angel, and they gave him looks that said quite plainly that it was a daily task they strived to achieve.

The Doctor finished pivoting, facing the vampire. "Angel," he said.

Angel's shoulders hunched. "Listen, Doctor-" he started.

The Doctor cut him off. "I know," he said with a sharp nod of his head. "She had plenty of chances. More than I usually give."

Angel nodded. He hesitated and then held out his hand. The Doctor took it.

When they dropped hands, the Doctor turned, calling for Martha. "I think we've blown up enough things to warrant a change in pace. Have I ever told you about the moondust beaches of Landlom V?"

"No," Martha said, grinning as he draped an arm around her shoulders. "But a beach sounds great. Two explosions in one adventure is plenty for us-my ears are still ringing from the second."

"Any more and it'd be a fireworks show," the Doctor flashed a grin at her. She couldn't help but return it more broadly. "A very destructive one, of course. That's no good. Let's not do that."

"Agreed," Martha laughed. She turned to wave goodbye to everyone before she closed the TARDIS door behind them. The latch clicked comfortingly. The Doctor dashed to the console to enter the coordinates into the launch sequence.

"Landlom V!" the Doctor shouted excitedly. "Moondust beaches and the ripest teardrop fruit you'll ever taste! Oh Martha Jones, you're in for a treat!"

Dashing past the Doctor for one of the back corridors, Martha said, "Okay, but let me pop down to the wardrobe first. I haven't-" and then it hit Martha like a train.

"Oh my god." She spun around, gaping open-mouthed at the Doctor.

"What?" he frowned at her. "Martha? What's wrong?"

"Oh my god," she repeated. " _Fireworks_."

"Yeah, they have fireworks there, too. I guess we could aim for the opening of the summer festival…"

"Paper," Martha demanded, dashing toward the console. "I need paper and a pen."

"Yeah, alright," the Doctor felt around his pockets for a pen and paper. "Martha, you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, fine," she said, taking the items when he found them. "I just need to do something." Finding a flat bit of console to write on, she hastily scribbled a note on the paper, shielding it from the Doctor's curious eyes, and then folded the note over twice. "I don't supposed you've got an envelope in there, too?" she asked.

"Mm yeah, I might have," the Doctor began feeling his pockets again, and after dumping a book, a remote control, and box of Girl Scout cookies on the console, found a blank, folded envelope.

Martha stuffed the note in, sealed it, and wrote another brief note on the front.

"I'll be right back," she said breathlessly, dropping the pen amidst the controls, and ran down the ramp and out the TARDIS door.

Angel and the others looked up with surprise at her sudden reappearance, and Angel looked even more shocked when she ran straight up to him and pressed the envelope into his hands.

"In the future," she told him, "you're going to see me again. Give me this."

Angel looked at the envelope in his hand in bewilderment, then back at her. "Huh?"

She gave a short, frustrated sigh. "Me. You. Future. This note. It will save lives, including, I think, yours. And I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but for god's sake, whatever you do, do _not_ read it."

"Hold on," Cordelia said, straightening up from where she'd been leaning against the counter, "you've _met_ him before. In the future."

From the couch, Gunn gave a things-are-falling-into-place kind of groan, and Wesley moved closer to Angel to peer at the envelope.

"When?" Angel asked, turning the envelope over as if to find more instructions than just the, _For Martha Jones - read_ _alone_ message on the front. "How do I know when I'll see you again?"

Martha shook her head. "You don't. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you." She was pretty sure she couldn't tell him. She never really knew for certain when paradoxes might be an issue - like knowing how far in the future you were going to survive might affect your present recklessness and sense of invincibility, causing your early death, and… Well, paradoxes. Also, she couldn't quite recall the _exact_ year. She'd made a point to repress most things relating to that particular "adventure."

Angel gave her a somewhat incredulous look. "So I'm just supposed to carry this around with me everywhere I go until then?"

Martha nodded. "Yeah, basically."

Angel also nodded, thoughtfully. "Lives saved?"

"More than we can guess."

Angel stared at the envelope with an expression that Martha was sure she'd worn many times in her travels with the Doctor. The, _So this is really happening_ part of _Time is giving me a headache_ , under the umbrella of, _When did I suddenly become part of all this?_ expression. Then, seeming to resolve something, he tucked the note carefully in the inside pocket of his coat and told her, "Then I look forward to it."

"I wouldn't," Martha replied darkly.

Then she turned headed back to the TARDIS. She had moondust beaches in her future.

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, you can keep reading with "Get Your Own Monastery" (or, you know, any other Blood and Time story, if you don't care about order). We hope you'll drop us a line with your thoughts and subscribe to us for upcoming stories. There is so much more to come...


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